5 Years of Behavioral Health Innovation Paying Dividends (Part II)
Over the next couple of weeks I’ll continue reflecting 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. Last week I wrote about the Integrated Health Homes initiative. Another success has been improvements in our Crisis Response [...]
Compliance v. Enforcement
Those of you in Public Health Licensing have heard me talk about the difference between compliance and enforcement more than once. They’re 2 different things. Compliance means that a licensed healthcare, residential or childcare facility meets our standards and expectations. Enforcement is an action that we occasionally take in order to get a facility into compliance. In other words, our [...]
Regulatory Reform Improves Health & Wellness in AZ
Three years ago we made the commitment to overhaul the way we regulate Arizona’s 5,500 licensed healthcare facilities. Our goal was to move from the existing prescriptive regulations to a new set of outcome-based rules. The idea was to shift from the former 2-dimensional standards to a deeper set of 3-dimensional regulations. The final regulations that we’re publishing at the end [...]
ADHS SWAT Team Strikes
Last week the ASH Pharmacy began having problems with the computer system that the medical staff use to order prescriptions for patients. Orders weren’t consistently showing up on the pharmacy computer screen or printing out. We implemented our back-up system right away, but the temporary work-around was time consuming. Our Information Technology team made this their highest priority to figure out [...]
5 Years of Behavioral Health Innovation Paying Dividends (Part I)
People with a serious mental illness die more than 30 years earlier than people without those challenges. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be reflecting 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. I’ll start with [...]
FDA Approves Painkiller Overdose Field Treatment
It’s no secret that misuse and abuse of opiate painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin are a large and growing public health threat in Arizona- misuse and abuse of these medicines are now killing more Arizonans than car crashes. Last week the FDA approved a prescription treatment called Evzio that can be used in medical emergencies caused by prescription opiates or heroin. It’s approved [...]