Every year the CDC evaluates each of the states on their public health preparedness performance. Arizona continued to score high marks on this year’s preparedness report card. We got a perfect score this year for biological laboratory testing, and we’ve kept our excellent performance measures for incident management, medical countermeasures, and public information. Our response [...]
Arizona uses a Certificate of Necessity (CON) system to regulate ground ambulance service in Arizona - and to make sure that every place in the State has adequate emergency medical services, including the frontier parts of Arizona. The CON actually describes the geographic service area, level of service (advanced life support or basic life support), [...]
American Medical Response’s (AMR) isn’t the only application in the pipeline. A number of fire departments along with private groups are applying for CONs right now. Some are farther along in the application process than others. Why all the interest in running an ambulance company? Rural Metro’s bankruptcy has probably played a role along with [...]
We expect to see flu cases, hospitalizations, and even some deaths every year, but recent data from the CDC shows that this season may be a little different than the past few flu seasons. First, the flu strain causing the most cases so far this year is Influenza A (H3N2). Flu seasons in which H3 [...]
Childhood immunizations are widely credited as one of the top ten public health achievements of the 20th century. For the 13 diseases included on the current U.S. childhood immunization schedule, 20 million cases of disease are prevented per year, 42,000 lives are saved, and the healthcare system realizes $13.6 million in direct medical costs (see [...]
Good oral health is critical to a person’s overall health. Tooth decay and gum disease are linked with heart disease, stroke and diabetes, and premature births. Many people in our community can’t afford dental care, so they suffer from poor oral health that affects their ability to speak, smile, smell, taste, touch and eat. That’s [...]
Late Monday, an Administrative Law Judge issued an Order recommending that I approve American Medical Response of Maricopa’s (AMR) application to operate ambulances (certificate of necessity or CON) in all of Maricopa County. We regulate ambulance services differently than most states. In order to operate an ambulance here the applicant needs to meet a number [...]
Community Integrated Paramedicine programs are coming together in two primary business models in Arizona. The first one has EMS (emergency medical services) agencies partnering with hospitals to reduce the frequency that patients are re-admitted to hospitals. In the second, EMS agencies are cultivating social service referrals to reduce the frequency that folks use emergency departments [...]
The University of Arizona Health Network joined the Maricopa Integrated Health System last week by committing to become an Infectious Disease Treatment Center of Excellence. By recognizing MIHS and UAHN as Infectious Disease Treatment Centers of Excellence, Arizona will be better able to: 1) develop a seamless infectious disease response plan as new infectious diseases emerge; [...]
Last week we published our Agency’s most popular annual report. It’s called the 2013 Arizona Health Status and Vital Statistics Report. Last year’s version got 2,000,000 hits! It gives our most granular public health information of the year including refined health statistics on pregnancies, births, reportable diseases, deaths, inpatient hospitalizations, emergency room visits, marriages, divorces [...]
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