Madan Jumps In Head-first
Our own Madan Gopal from I.T. has been invited by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to participate in a national Roundtable discussion about the role and use of health IT to fill the needs of behavioral health providers, to integrate behavioral health record data into primary care, and on how ”Meaningful Use” could support this integration. Madan was asked [...]
The 3 Bears
The 3 bears submitted by Fish & Game to our State Lab ended up being negative for the deadly rabies virus. These bears are thought to be connected to the bear attacks, which happened in and around Payson recently. If separate DNA test results that were sent by Fish & Game for testing match the bears we tested to the attacks, [...]
Walking the Balance Beam
One of the balancing acts that folks living with disabilities face is how to navigate employment opportunities and still keep the services that keep them healthy and able to work in the first place. There’s a great new statewide resource that can help folks with disabilities and their families make informed decisions. It’s a web based tool called Disability Benefits [...]
Bear Brains
Some of our Laboratory scientists (Kathryn Fitzpatrick, Alexandra Bhatti, Heather Bickley and Charles Martin) are busy right now testing the brains of the 2 bears that were destroyed over the weekend to see if they had rabies. You might have heard about the bear attacks, which happened in and around Payson recently. On Sunday, a Tempe man was attacked by [...]
Dispatch Interventions
About a year ago Ben Bobrow, MD (our EMS Medical Director) came into my office with a great idea to set up a program to train 911 dispatchers in better ways to coach callers through CPR instructions so callers can do a better job before the paramedics get there. The problem was money. So I sent him over to our chronic disease [...]
M2 Contracts On Deck
We have a couple of new projects in the works to ensure that the dispensary system reflects a medical rather than a recreational system. We’re working with Arizona's pharmacy/poison control systems to put together a contract to provide technical assistance and educational materials to the future dispensary medical directors. We’re also putting together a contract to hire a vendor to [...]