Licensing – Page 7 – AZ Dept. of Health Services Director's Blog

Training Improves Outcomes

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:36-07:00June 27th, 2014|General, Licensing, Preparedness|

Improving health outcomes at licensed healthcare facilities in Arizona requires 2 main ingredients. Having regulations and encourage continuous quality improvement (which is now complete) and providing our licensed facilities with the information they need to implement practices (in accordance with the regulations) to execute positive change. Now that we’ve finished developing the new regulations, it’s [...]

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Wildfire Season Kicks Off

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:38-07:00May 23rd, 2014|Licensing, Preparedness|

The first big fire of the season started this week in Oak Creek Canyon- called the Slide fire. Smoke is usually the first public health impact from wildland fires. The air quality in Flagstaff and Sedona has been generally OK- but poor at times depending on the winds (smoke levels in Sedona have been high [...]

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Major Regulatory Reform Milestone

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:40-07:00May 5th, 2014|Behavioral Health, Licensing|

Last week we passed a major milestone in our Strategic Plan when we filed our final new set of rules for the Arizona's 5,500 licensed healthcare facilities. With this week's filing - we've now completed our overhaul of the State's regulations for hospitals, behavioral health inpatient facilities, nursing care institutions, recovery care centers, hospices, behavioral health residential facilities, assisted living facilities, outpatient surgical centers, outpatient treatment centers, adult day health care [...]

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Abortion Clinic Inspections Bill

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:42-07:00April 24th, 2014|Licensing|

We license and inspect abortion clinics in AZ. Due to a court settlement agreement (unlike other health care institutions we license) we’re currently required to get an administrative search warrant before conducting an unannounced inspection of an abortion clinic. For a routine compliance inspection, we need to give them 10 days-notice. On Tuesday, the [...]

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Compliance v. Enforcement

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:43-07:00April 21st, 2014|Licensing|

Those of you in Public Health Licensing have heard me talk about the difference between compliance and enforcement more than once. They’re 2 different things. Compliance means that a licensed healthcare, residential or childcare facility meets our standards and expectations. Enforcement is an action that we occasionally take in order to get a facility into [...]

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Regulatory Reform Improves Health & Wellness in AZ

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:43-07:00April 18th, 2014|Licensing|

Three years ago we made the commitment to overhaul the way we regulate Arizona’s 5,500 licensed healthcare facilities. Our goal was to move from the existing prescriptive regulations to a new set of outcome-based rules. The idea was to shift from the former 2-dimensional standards to a deeper set of 3-dimensional regulations. The final regulations that [...]

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Healthcare Associated Infections Progress Report

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:43-07:00April 8th, 2014|Licensing|

Healthcare-Associated infections are a major (often preventable) threat to patient safety. Last week the National and State Healthcare Associated Infections Progress Report expanded on previous reports- detailing progress toward the eliminating healthcare-associated infections. The HAI Progress Report found significant reductions for nearly all infections- including in AZ. Central line-associated bloodstream infections and surgical site infections [...]

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Now Hiring – Licensing Assistant Director

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:45-07:00March 26th, 2014|Licensing|

Once in a while we have a tremendous opportunity for a great leader to join our team, but not very often. We just posted the Assistant Director for Public Health Licensing. The person we’re looking for will be able to take a great team and make it better. This person will be collaborating with partners [...]

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Arizona State Hospital In Good Standing

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:46-07:00March 14th, 2014|Behavioral Health, Licensing|

Last September the Arizona State Hospital (ASH) was inspected (surveyed) for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The survey team can review over 20 different areas and three were identified that we needed to address: Governing Body, Patient Rights, and Nursing Services. In December, we developed and implemented a Plan of Correction which [...]

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Planned Parenthood v. Humble

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:46-07:00March 11th, 2014|Licensing|

We were served Wednesday with a lawsuit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief from our new Abortion Clinic Regulations that are scheduled to go into effect on April 1. The new regulations were in response to HB 2036, which was passed and signed during the 2012 legislative session… tasking us with several things related to the regulation of abortions. [...]

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