Maricopa County Behavioral Health Contract Update
Last week the AZ Department of Administration decided to ask the Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings to conduct an official hearing regarding our October 1 contract award for the Regional Behavioral Health Authority in Maricopa County. You may remember that the ADOA issued a stay last month that stopped the transition process. We received a notice from the ADOA yesterday that [...]
Border Bi-national Public Health
You can think of the border public health advocacy network as a bi-national matrix of public health partners that collaborate to improve conditions along the US-Mexico border. The network includes national organizations like the U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission along with state based partnerships like the Arizona-Mexico Commission and the annual Border Governor’s Conference. As part of my job as the Director, I’m a [...]
Arizona Mexico Commission Goes Well
The annual plenary session of the Arizona-Mexico Commission wrapped up last night with some important health events. We signed a Cooperative Agreement with the Secreteria de Salud Publica in Sonora to educate people on both sides of the border about the importance of buckling up children and infants. In the last Child Fatality Review report – there were 70 children [...]
Our “Interim Compensation Strategy”
One of the elements of last year’s state personnel reform is the ability to reward staff who do great work and have tangible results to prove it. Our first opportunity to take advantage of the incentives are coming this month with something called our “interim compensation strategies”. It’s basically the first stop in the road for applying incentives called spot bonuses and meritorious [...]
Men’s Health Week Time to Think about Our Health
This week is Men’s Health Week - the worldwide event happens every year before Father’s Day calling attention to the issues that affect men’s health. Many groups take the opportunity to talk about men’s health – we should be thinking about our health every week. The top health issues that impact men’s health are also some of the easiest issues [...]
PE, Math and English Go Hand in Hand
The Institute of Medicine just released a new report that recommends schools make physical education a core subject, just like math and English. According to the report… 44% of school administrators reported cutting significant time from PE classes in order to devote more time to reading and math over the last 10 years. There’s pressure to increase classroom time for standardized test [...]