Our Smoke Free Arizona and ITS teams polished off their electronic Complaint Reporting System this week. Our county partners can use the new tool to manage complaints electronically. The reports can be downloaded in PDF format or Excel. This is a great example of a solid team effort with participation from both teams including Harmony Duport, [...]
The FDA approved this year’s (2010-2011) flu vaccine for the US. This year's shot will protect folks from 3 strains of influenza including the pandemic strain from last year. The technical terms for the strains in this year’s shot are the “A/California/7/09 (H1N1)-like virus (i.e. pandemic virus”; the “A/Perth /16/2009 (H3N2)-like virus”; and the “B/Brisbane/60/2008-like [...]
Our laboratory expects to get our first seafood samples from the Gulf next week. The goal is find out whether commercial seafood has been contaminated by the oil spill and if so, to determine whether the levels pose a health risk. Our team will specialize in testing for Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The FDA and NOAA [...]
Arizona enjoys a relatively high breastfeeding rate compared to the rest of the country- with 78% of all newborns being breastfed. But we can always do better, that’s why we’re joining the rest of the world in celebrating World Breastfeeding Week, which promotes the health and well-being of mothers, babies and families throughout the world. [...]
Some of the folks that we serve in our diverse mission have complicated medical conditions and may have had trouble in the past finding health insurance because of a pre-existing health problem. The new federal healthcare reform law may be able to help some of these folks under the newly created “Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP)”… [...]
The first part of the fiscal year (July) is always a busy time for our budget folks. The new fiscal year requires a lot of data entry, cross-checks, analysis and review. It was a busy time of year even when we had several people in the budget office. This year we got the job done [...]
Cindy from the Delta Society began making visits with her therapy dogs at the Arizona State Hospital a couple of weeks ago. The Delta Society is a volunteer organization that improves people's health and well-being using positive interactions with animals. Their mission is to help people by incorporating therapy, service and companion animals into their [...]
Congratulations to our team at the Arizona State Hospital- which was ranked in the top 20% of all US psychiatric hospitals. The report was put together by the US News and World Report and ranks psychiatric hospitals using objective criteria as well as the hospital’s reputation with clinicians. Overall, ASH ranked number 31 of [...]
Did you know that nearly 1/8 of all emergency department visits in the US are because of a mental disorder, substance abuse problem or both? A new federal report found that depression and other mood disorders accounted for 43% of behavioral health visits, 26% were for anxiety disorders and 23% involved alcohol-related problems. These data are [...]
Many of our Stakeholders and the folks that we serve have asked about how Arizona and Federal laws affect the kinds of services that the ADHS provides. The answer is (of course) “it depends.” It depends on what kind of benefit or service you’re talking about. Tom Salow, Lynn Golder and others have put together [...]
