Preparedness – Page 73 – AZ Dept. of Health Services News

Items in the Preparedness category will cover everything from Emergency Medical Services to vaccination programs. This division at ADHS tracks contagious disease, coordinates emergency preparedness activity, licenses EMTs and Paramedics, regulates ambulance companies, authorizes special hospital designations like cardiac care center and Level IV trauma center, issues birth and death certificates, and tracks critical health data through various sources including hospital discharge information.

AZ Aces Latest CDC Public Health Preparedness Report Card

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:53-07:00February 3rd, 2014|Preparedness|

Arizona continues to score high marks on preparedness according to a CDC report released this week. We got a perfect score this year for biological laboratory testing, and we’ve kept our excellent performance measures for incident management, public information, and medical countermeasures. Our response times for activating our emergency operation center have been well above [...]

What’s the Medical “Standard of Care” in an Emergency?

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:54-07:00January 23rd, 2014|Preparedness|

Good question. Disasters and public health emergencies can stress health care systems to the breaking point and disrupt delivery of vital medical services. For example- hospitals and long-term care facilities may be without power; trained staff, ambulances, medical supplies, and beds could be in short supply; and alternate care facilities may need to be used. [...]

Special Needs Emergency Preparedness Manual

By Will Humble|2021-07-09T08:49:29-07:00January 22nd, 2014|Preparedness|

The first link in the chain of survival during a public health disaster is people taking responsibility for their own family’s safety. Being prepared at home is the first line of defense. Families that have family members with special needs sometimes need to have more detailed plans to ensure that their needs will be met [...]

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AZ Disease Detective Software Overhaul

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:55-07:00January 14th, 2014|Preparedness|

Our statewide disease detectives (whose job it is to slow the spread of communicable diseases) need real-time electronic surveillance in order to get the job done. Our I.T. folks and the people in Public Health Preparedness have been working on an upgraded system to help them for the last several months- and our new Medical Electronic [...]

Sochi Public Health Tips

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:55-07:00January 13th, 2014|Preparedness, Prevention|

I know that some of you out there are going to attend the Winter Olympics - so I put together the blog post below over the weekend for folks that might be going. Here goes in case you’re interested: Let’s start with the good news first- then the health tips… Sochi Games to be Smoke Free- Russians [...]

MERS Update

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:55-07:00January 10th, 2014|Preparedness|

Back in the fall I mentioned the new SARS-like virus, MERS-CoV, which has been causing severe illness, and sometimes death, mainly in the Arabian Peninsula. Four months ago, 103 cases had been reported worldwide, about half of them fatal. Now, 177 cases have been reported, with 74 deaths. The cases are almost all located in [...]

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Influenza Season Officially Arrives

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:56-07:00January 3rd, 2014|Preparedness|

Flu season is here! Parts of the country (mostly in the south) have had more intense flu activity in the last few weeks, and 25 states reported widespread flu activity for the week ending December 28th. Meanwhile, in Arizona we are seeing an increase in the number of lab-confirmed flu cases reported to ADHS- but [...]

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Tweaking the EMS Cost Curve

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:56-07:00December 20th, 2013|Preparedness|

A couple of years ago I had our folks in the Bureau of EMS and Trauma System write a guidance document on what we believe is appropriate to include in ambulance contracts. We noticed that these contracts were getting very complicated and included a whole lot of stuff that was very expensive… but that didn’t have much to [...]

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Rural Metro Bankruptcy Confirmed by Court (but not yet effective)

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:57-07:00December 19th, 2013|Preparedness|

We received Rural Metro’s bankruptcy documents this week. The Delaware bankruptcy court confirmed the company’s reorganization- including the business plan and capital structure. The plan states that the company will be continuing all material contracts in AZ- which is good. They’ll officially emerge from Chapter 11 once its reorganization plan is declared “effective”… meaning that [...]

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Typhoon Haiyan & Public Health

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:49:59-07:00November 29th, 2013|Behavioral Health, General, Preparedness, Prevention|

Like conflict and wars, typhoon Haiyan (local name Yolanda) destroyed basic services for food, water, health care and shelter in the Central Philippines. This disaster was declared a “Level 3” Emergency by the UN, meaning there’s substantial impact on the health of people and it can’t be managed by a country or region alone. The [...]

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