Sitting is the new smoking
Public health embarked on a smoking revolution over the last few decades, kicking it into high gear to provide programs and policies to help Arizonans change their smoking habits. While by no means has the tobacco battle been won, America is currently undergoing another revolution—a walking revolution. Physical activity is not new territory in public health. Public health professionals have [...]
Guide to Community Prevention Services
Every so often- you run into a resource guide that stands above the rest. I discovered one of those awhile back called the Guide to Community Preventive Services – and it’s a free resource to help you choose programs and policies to improve health and prevent disease in communities. The easy-to-read resource guide answers questions like: 1) Which program and [...]
ADHS Partners with Students for Research
Our public health mission is closely linked to the public health mission of many groups, including those at the community, county and university levels. That’s why I frequently attend meetings watching for chances to work together. I also try to connect public health students with people in our shop doing cutting edge work. Working together is a win-win…we get more [...]
No Place Like Home
Over the last 18 months, our licensing team in collaboration with trade organizations from every sphere of healthcare delivery, partnered with Health Services Advisory Group (HSAG), Arizona’s Medicare Quality Improvement Organization, in its statewide initiative designed to reduce by 4000 the number of preventable hospital readmissions. Aptly named the No Place Like Home Campaign, because there really is no place [...]
Patient Confidentiality: Public Health’s Sacred Trust
Public health surveillance is a cornerstone of public health practice… and the effectiveness of that surveillance system rests on a foundation of patient confidentiality. The public’s consent for allowing their personal medical information to be reported is made with the understanding that the data will be kept confidential. The moment we jeopardize the trust, we put the entire public [...]
Evaluating a Trauma System II
A couple of weeks ago, I introduced the concept of “Over Triage”… which is when EMS transports a patient to the highest level of care (like a level I trauma center) when they could have taken them to a level III or IV trauma center closer to their home. The downside of over-triage is that care at high-end centers is [...]