Anybody that has worked in the healthcare industry knows who's the backbone of care: Nurses. Last week we celebrated nurses with National Nurses Week. We have many nurses throughout the Department in various divisions. Each nurse provides a distinct service to the Department. The majority of our nurses work at the AZ State Hospital providing [...]
Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll continue my series on the healthcare matrix for American Indians. Last week I covered the basics of the Indian Health Service. This week’s write-up is about something called “638's”. Tribes and Tribal Organizations can elect to administer healthcare services that normally would be administered by the IHS. This [...]
Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be writing a series on the healthcare matrix for American Indians. I’ll be covering the basics of the Indian Health Service, how Medicaid and Medicare interface with Native Americans, as well as some of the basics of the Affordable Care Act as it relates to American Indians. Let’s [...]
House Bill 2491 has been in the media and became a law with the Governor’s signature. The new law requires us to add critical congenital heart defect (CCHD) to our newborn screening program protocol. This new screening and reporting requirement will kick in once our rulemaking is complete- probably this Fall. The screening test we'll be [...]
A few years ago, the legislature made some important changes to the language in our state laws by removing hurtful words related to people with developmental disabilities. Last year, the legislature removed some really old definitions and terms related to mental illness. This year a new law was passed and signed (HB 2667) that went through [...]
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 [...]
A healthcare worker who recently returned from Saudi Arabia is the first confirmed case of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in the U.S. The person's in stable condition in isolation in an Indiana hospital. All public health agencies around the world have been carefully watching for new cases of MERS since the disease was [...]
You might remember from a few weeks ago that a single patient exposed over 1,000 Arizonans to measles. Because measles is highly infectious and 90% of unvaccinated contacts become infected, Public Health worked overtime to identify and interview suspected cases. Health care facilities were placed on heightened alert. The State Laboratory rushed testing of suspicious [...]
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve reflected about some of the innovative strategies that we’ve implemented with our behavioral health community partners over the last several years to improve the health status of folks with a serious mental illness. So far, I’ve covered integrated health homes and improvements to the crisis system. On the [...]
Last week an FDA panel unanimously recommended rejecting a new drug that’s a combination of morphine and oxycodone – two very strong painkillers. The panel, Anesthetic and Analgesic Drug Products Advisory Committee, said the company didn’t provide data to prove that Moxduo is more effective or safer than using one of the already available drugs. [...]
