AzPHA Spring Conference
Registration is now open for the Arizona Public Health Association (AzPHA) 2015 Spring Conference. The conference titled: "It Starts Upstream: A Public Health Approach to Building a Healthy Future” will be held on Thursday, April 9, at the Phoenix Zoo. This year’s conference will feature panel discussions on the Social Determinants of Health and Nutrition through a Cultural Lens, a [...]
Southern AZ RBHA Procurement Protest
In mid-December (2014) we awarded contracts for the Northern and Southern regions of the state to Health Choice Integrated Care (Northern AZ) and Cenpatico Integrated Care (in Southern AZ). On January 2nd United Healthcare filed a Protest with the ADHS for the award in Southern AZ, requesting an Emergency Stay and Administrative Hearing. Last month (January 21) we denied the Protest. United HealthCare [...]
Coping with Stress
Stress can have a profound impact on health and affects your body, thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Symptoms like chronic headaches, insomnia, and lower productivity can be a direct result of stress. Being able to recognize common stress symptoms can give you a jump on managing them. Stress management is important, because, left unchecked, it can cause high blood pressure, heart [...]
Ebola Interventions Working
There has been tremendous progress in controlling Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa in the last month. New Ebola cases have fallen sharply in the last few weeks to fewer than 100 per week. For the week ending January 25, there were 4 new cases in Liberia, 30 in Guinea and 65 in Sierra Leone. At this point in the epidemic, [...]
AMR Certificate of Necessity
You might recall that a few weeks ago I approved American Medical Response’s (AMR Maricopa) application to operate ambulances in Maricopa County (called a Certificate of Necessity or CON). I approved the Certificate of Necessity after reviewing a host of evidence presented to an Administrative Law Judge and her Order recommending approval. Approval of the application doesn’t mean that AMR [...]
To Everything, There is a Season
When I started working at our agency in 1992 (doing risk assessments for state superfund sites) I never dreamed that one day I’d have the honor of serving as the agency director. Quite honestly, I never had a goal of being the director- but somehow it just happened. This has been an awesome job. We’ve made tremendous progress in [...]