We have a couple of new projects in the works to ensure that the dispensary system reflects a medical rather than a recreational system. We’re working with Arizona's pharmacy/poison control systems to put together a contract to provide technical assistance and educational materials to the future dispensary medical directors. We’re also putting together a contract [...]
Our Forensic Hospital transition team successfully transferred our forensic patients to the new facility this week. In all, 100 patients in 6 different units were moved into the new forensic hospital this week. Things were smooth because of careful planning and solid execution by nursing, IT, Operations, Campus Support & Safety, Rehab Services, Social Services, Psychology Services, Crothall Housekeeping and Facilities, [...]
Overall, we ended up receiving 486 medical marijuana dispensary applications among our 126 Community Health Analysis Areas (CHAAs). Twenty-seven of the CHAAs had no applicant at all- leaving 99 Community Health Analysis Areas with at least 1 applicant. Seventy-five of the 99 had more than 1 applicant. Assuming that each of these end up being complete, we’ll [...]
Our Request For Purchase (otherwise known as RFP) Core Team (Bob Sorce, Victoria Navarra, Teresita Oaks, and Chris Leavitt) and our entire cast of characters has been doing a full court press for the last 6 months to put together the Scope of Work that we’ll use when we go out for bid for the massive behavioral health services [...]
The first thing that you learn in a Toxicology 101 class is the old saying coined by the Renaissance German scientist Paracelsus that: "All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; only the dose permits something not to be poisonous." We've shortened that to: 'the dose makes the poison". Anyway... a key question for [...]
An excessive heat warning has been issued this week, with temps climbing up to 113!!!! The AZ heat is a lot more than a nuisance – it's lethal. Our latest report on heat shows that about 1,400 Arizonans get a heat related illness so serious they end up in a hospital emergency room – hundreds [...]
AZ had the biggest % decrease in teen smoking rates in the country according to the new CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey this week. Smoking rates among AZ teens dropped 12% in the last couple of years- while rates generally stayed flat across the country. That's 11,000 fewer teen tobacco users between 2009 and 2011. About half of the teenagers in AZ [...]
I'm excited to announce that we have 32 teams signed up for the ADHS Worksite Wellness Stair Climb Challenge. Stair climbing and other physical activities have so many health benefits including decreasing your risk of developing a chronic disease, improving your mental health and mood, and it increases your chances of living longer. So, Get Your Climb On!
Strategic Effectiveness is defined by three essential components: Formulate a Plan, Implement the Plan, and Review and Adjust. Many times we do the first two and forget to come back to the third most important step needed for true progress to occur. To “review and adjust,” our senior leadership met in mid-April to do an annual [...]
Many of you have heard how I’d like to see the food stamp program (now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP) hard-wire better nutrition into the program by beginning to include nutritious food inventory criteria for SNAP vendors. To help make the case, we contracted with the ASU School of Nutrition & Health [...]
