AZ Office of Administrative Hearings Speaks
The formal protest process regarding our award of the Regional Behavioral Health Authority contract in Maricopa County is finally winding down. The proceedings at the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) were completed a few weeks ago, and the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) issued her recommendation on Monday, concluding that: “Based on the foregoing, it is recommended that ADHS’s award of [...]
Chronic Disease Calculator E-tool.
The CDC just developed a great new Cost Calculator that provides state-level annual medical expenditure and absenteeism estimates for 10 chronic conditions. The tool provides medical expenditures for all of AZ for all payers as well as specific payers Medicaid, Medicare, and commercial insurers. The 10 chronic conditions are arthritis; asthma; cancer; cardiovascular diseases (congestive heart failure, coronary heart disease, [...]
Healthy Thanksgiving
Whether you’re hosting a Thanksgiving celebration or attending as a guest, you can help make the healthy choice the easy choice for your friends and family. Consider making a healthier version of an old favorite to share. This recipe for Corn Bread Crusted Turkey would go great served with this slightly modified recipe for a classic Green Bean Casserole. More [...]
Draft New Abortion Clinic Regulations
A state law (HB 2036) was passed and signed awhile back that tasked us with several things related to the regulation of abortions in AZ. Among them were provisions directing us to develop a parental informed consent form for minors and establish a website with a host of information identified in the statute. Our next task is to conduct a [...]
Rural Metro’s October Update
We’ve been monitoring the response times for the big ambulance service provider - Rural Metro – since they went into bankruptcy in August. They have 13 different ambulance services in Arizona and we want to make sure that they're meeting the grade during their reorganization. We asked them to send us monthly reports on their response times in each ambulance district. We've seen [...]
This is An Exercise
Arizona’s public health and healthcare system teamed up with the ADHS including our Bureau of Public Health Emergency Preparedness and the Arizona Division of Emergency Management last week in one of the largest preparedness exercises of the year. The objective was to test and build preparedness capabilities across the emergency management system in AZ. More than 3,000 public health players tested the [...]