Medical Marijuana @ 1 Year
Our Vital Health Statistics team along with our partners at the UA College of Public Health completed the 1st Annual Report for the Arizona Medical Marijuana Program this week. You’ll find a wide range of information in the report including data about the demographics and kinds and qualifying conditions of our cardholders, geographic distribution and rates as well as background information [...]
New Folks
I'm happy to announce that Tracey Sotelo has agreed to serve as the Executive Director of our Arizona Biomedical Research Commission. She comes to us from ADOA where she was a Manager in the Benefit Services Division. She has also served as a legal contracts specialist for Banner Research Institute where she reviewed, drafted, revised and negotiated research contracts for clinical trials and device studies. Please welcome Tracey. Also, [...]
Affordable Care Act Fact Sheets
The Fed’s put out a series of pretty simple and easy to read 1-page fact sheets this week that summarize some of the aspects of the Affordable Care Act. There are Fact Sheets for Families with Kids; Health Care Providers; Folks with Disabilities; Seniors; Small Business Owners; and Young Adults. At the bottom of each fact sheet there’s a link [...]
Healthier Eating is a SNAP
Many of you have heard how I’d like to see the USDA’s food stamp program (now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP) hard-wire better nutrition into the program by beginning to include nutritious food inventory criteria for SNAP vendors. To help make the case, we contracted with the ASU School of Nutrition & Health Promotion to write a [...]
Screening Newborns for Congenital Heart Defects
Our Newborn Screening Program (in the State Laboratory) ensures that each newborn is tested for 28 inherited disorders and hearing problems. The goal is to help kids avoid illness, developmental delays and even death by quickly identifying problems and swiftly letting their doctors know so they can implement interventions. On any given day our newborn screening team tests from 600 [...]
Celebrating a Link in the Chain of Survival
Every day 15 Arizonans suffer from a cardiac arrest (their heart stops). That’s 15 yesterday, today and tomorrow- adding up to more than 5,000 people in Arizona per year… which is more the 5 times the number of folks that die in car crashes. Saving lives after a cardiac arrest requires several links in the “Chain of Survival” from: 1) [...]