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 [...]
Movin’ on Up
Our Forensic Hospital transition team successfully transferred our forensic patients to the new facility this week. In all, 100 patients in 6 different units were moved into the new forensic hospital this week. Things were smooth because of careful planning and solid execution by nursing, IT, Operations, Campus Support & Safety, Rehab Services, Social Services, Psychology Services, Crothall Housekeeping and Facilities, Morrison Dietary Services and Cardinal [...]
Selection Tuesday
Overall, we ended up receiving 486 medical marijuana dispensary applications among our 126 Community Health Analysis Areas (CHAAs). Twenty-seven of the CHAAs had no applicant at all- leaving 99 Community Health Analysis Areas with at least 1 applicant. Seventy-five of the 99 had more than 1 applicant. Assuming that each of these end up being complete, we’ll need to randomly select successful [...]
Behavioral Health Contract Scope Enters the Homestretch
Our Request For Purchase (otherwise known as RFP) Core Team (Bob Sorce, Victoria Navarra, Teresita Oaks, and Chris Leavitt) and our entire cast of characters has been doing a full court press for the last 6 months to put together the Scope of Work that we’ll use when we go out for bid for the massive behavioral health services contract in Maricopa County later this [...]
The Dose Makes the Poison
The first thing that you learn in a Toxicology 101 class is the old saying coined by the Renaissance German scientist Paracelsus that: "All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; only the dose permits something not to be poisonous." We've shortened that to: 'the dose makes the poison". Anyway... a key question for public health is to figure [...]