Vital Records Quality Improvement Team Gets Impressive Results
Our Vital Records team handles more than 600 mail-in requests for birth and death certificates each week. The average wait time for mail-in certificates had been nearly 4 weeks...too slow in anybody’s book. Last month we established a cross-functional quality improvement team to find and implement ways to reduce the turnaround time. We now have some great results to show [...]
ADHS Recognized for Communication Success
Several of our marketing efforts were honored at the National Conference on Health Communication in Atlanta. Our Intranet Re-design, Call 9-1-1 CPR and Cardiac Arrest video, Dairy Made Easy radio ads and Language Access List grabbed the attention of judges from Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. The winners in the annual contest are on the [...]
Bed Bugs: A Most Unwelcome Nuisance
Just the idea of bed bugs makes folks squirm...which is understandable, but here in Arizona we have scarier bugs like Rhipicephalus sanguineus or Culex quinquefasciatus that actually transmit diseases like Rocky Mountain spotted fever and West Nile virus. Bed bugs don’t transmit disease but they can cause skin reactions and psychosocial stress (e.g., anxiety and sleeplessness). Bed bugs feed on [...]
Two More Medical Marijuana Lawsuits This Week
A few weeks ago I issued a Director’s Decision authorizing the use of marijuana for medical marijuana patients undergoing conventional treatment for PTSD. Beginning January 1 physician certifications will be valid for palliative care of PTSD symptoms as long as certifying physicians attest that the patient is currently undergoing some kind of conventional treatment for PTSD before signing the certification. I [...]
Preventive Services Widget for Clinicians
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality recently announced the release of the “ePSS widget” - which provides primary care clinicians and health care teams with timely decision support regarding appropriate screening, counseling, and preventive services for their patients. The tool is based on the current, evidence-based recommendations of the US Preventive Services Task Force and can be searched by [...]
The 5th “Vital Sign” & the Painkiller Epidemic (Part V of V)
In Parts I, II, III, and IV of this series we established the acute and growing effects that the opiate painkiller epidemic is having in America, and how it has been driven (in part) by aggressive pain management strategies that were implemented since Pain was identified as the 5th Vital Sign. Since then, public health and other sectors have been [...]