Ebola Preparedness: Public Health Priorities
As Ebola cases continue to rise worldwide and in the US, ADHS is redoubling our efforts to ensure Arizona's healthcare and public health systems are prepared to respond to potential Ebola cases. Right now, our top priorities are ensuring the rapid identification and prompt isolation of cases in order to reduce disease spread to healthcare workers and close contacts of the patient. [...]
Plague over the Centuries
Ring around the roseies, A pocket full of posies, Ashes, ashes! We all fall down! In 1348, London was 4 million strong, but within 2.5 years a third of those had “fallen down.” The streets were narrow and cramped, often piled ankle deep with human and animal waste. The putrid smell contaminated everything in the city. Those infected with the [...]
New Draft Medical Marijuana Regulations Out for Public Comment
For the last few months we’ve been reviewing our medical marijuana rules to make changes to them in response to an Arizona Superior Court judge’s decision. In addition to the changes needed to comply with the Court’s ruling, also proposing other changes to the medical marijuana rules that affect qualifying patients, caregivers, and dispensaries that include: Reducing the fees for [...]
AZ Ebola Readiness Gap Analysis Underway
The CDC developed an Ebola self-assessment tool for states last week called Top 10 Ebola Response Planning Tips: Ebola Readiness Self-Assessment for State and Local Public Health Officials. The self-assessment (which is posted on the CDC’s Ebola Website) provides a tool for states to evaluate their overall Ebola readiness. Our team has been going through the checklist to identify additional interventions and [...]
Bids In for Integrated Behavioral Health Contracts
Now that we have a new integrated behavioral health care model in Maricopa County, we’ve set our sights on implementing a similar integrated care model in the rest of the state. Our Procurement Team closed the bidding for the Greater Arizona Behavioral Health RFP last Thursday afternoon. This important procurement solicited bids for providing integrated behavioral and physical health for folks with a [...]
ADHS Lab Ready to Test for Ebola
Our ADHS Public Health Laboratory has been authorized by the CDC to begin testing blood samples for the Ebola Virus as needed. We received an Ebola test kit on Tuesday, completed our proficiency testing Wednesday, and were approved yesterday (Thursday). The kit can test up to 9 clinical samples for the Ebola Virus. We used a few of the tests for our quality [...]