General – Page 76 – AZ Dept. of Health Services News

Medicare Moves Upstream

By azdhs-admin|2017-02-10T09:51:24-07:00December 13th, 2011|General, Prevention|

Keeping off the pounds is tough at any age. Now seniors are getting a helping hand from Medicare. Last month Medicare announced that it’s adding coverage for nutritional and behavioral counseling for those who are obese as measured by body mass index or BMI. BMI is a tool which measures weight status for adults- and [...]

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Patient Confidentiality: A Cornerstone of Public Health Practice

By azdhs-admin|2017-02-10T09:51:25-07:00December 8th, 2011|General|

When we think about holding things in confidence- several relationships come to mind that have a long history built on trust and the sharing of deeply private information. Most of us can name these relationships with ease… husband and wife… lawyer and client… health care providers, public health officials and patients. These relationships exist for [...]

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Forging a New Trauma Tool

By azdhs-admin|2011-12-07T08:12:41-07:00December 7th, 2011|General, Prevention|

Kudos to our EMS and Trauma System team for forging some new tools to improve trauma care in AZ. Our Data and Quality Assurance team developed an innovative benchmarking tool that’s shared with each of AZ’s trauma centers. The tool shows each facility their injury specific survival rates and compares those rates to the (blinded) other [...]

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Home Birth Protest

By azdhs-admin|2011-12-06T08:14:45-07:00December 6th, 2011|General, Licensing|

Those of you that were working at our downtown campus last Wednesday afternoon may have seen the 100 or so folks carrying placards in front of our 150 Building. They were asking us to make it easier to have a home-birth in AZ. How can we do that, you ask? Many of you probably didn’t [...]

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A Virus is Born

By azdhs-admin|2017-02-10T09:51:25-07:00December 5th, 2011|General, Preparedness|

The CDC confirmed the birth of a new influenza virus in this week’s MMWR Weekly Report. The newborn is named “Swine-origin Triple Reassortant Influenza A (H3N2) (S-OtrH3N2)”. The hybrid virus was found in a handful of school-age kids in Iowa recently- and luckily the kids recovered and none were hospitalized. Nobody outside the initial cluster has been infected [...]

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Arizona Health Disparities Connection & Maternal and Child Health Newsletters

By azdhs-admin|2011-12-02T08:59:18-07:00December 2nd, 2011|General|

Check out the latest issue of AHDConnection – Arizona’s Leading Health Disparities Resource on our Minority Health webpage and our brand new Maternal & Child Health Newsletter. Both have great info.

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HIV Becomes a Chronic Disease

By azdhs-admin|2017-02-10T09:51:25-07:00December 1st, 2011|General|

Chronic disease often calls up bad images for people because it means living with the disease for a long time. But… there was a time when cancer wasn’t chronic disease because people got sick and died pretty quickly. The same goes for HIV. When it was first discovered in the early 80s people quickly transitioned [...]

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Integration Licensing Forums

By azdhs-admin|2017-02-10T09:51:25-07:00November 30th, 2011|General|

Earlier this year the Governor signed HB 2634 which directs us to develop new rules for licensing places that can provide both behavioral and physical health services. We’re excited about this rulemaking because it supports our efforts to establish coordination and collaboration between all behavioral health and physical health providers. We’ve developed a preliminary plan [...]

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The Health Care/Public Health Continuum

By azdhs-admin|2011-11-29T09:08:31-07:00November 29th, 2011|General, Prevention|

In the world of health care- the clinician works with patients individually. They examine various indicators of health for their patient including direct observations and laboratory or other diagnostic tests and implement interventions to help their patient improve their health. Providers also encourage their patients to live healthy lifestyles and take safety precautions- and help [...]

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RSV Ramping Up in AZ

By azdhs-admin|2011-11-28T08:23:19-07:00November 28th, 2011|General|

Respiratory syncytial virus (or RSV) is a respiratory virus that mainly affects little kids- and circulates around this time of year. There’s no vaccine- but clinicians can give a preventive antibody treatment to folks at greatest risk (e.g. premature infants). It spreads mostly in the winter (like influenza) but flu and RSV don’t usually peak at [...]

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