Behavioral Health Dashboard Refresh
Magellan of AZ & their behavioral health providers (and of course our DBHS shop) have been collaborating to develop and update an innovative provider outcomes dashboards to make a transparent window into the effectiveness of the behavioral health system based on core metrics. The recently updated online dashboards provide great info to the folks that we serve and their families… but also to the [...]
AZ Women’s Health Status Report
Our Bureau of Women's and Children's Health team released the Arizona Women's Health Status Report recently. The report details how Arizona women are doing toward achieving optimal health and wellness. Topics covered in the report include physical activity, oral health, mental health, access to care and general wellness. The good news is that 83% of Arizona women report having good [...]
Behavioral Health Licensing Regulatory Reform
The behavioral health system transformation that we’re working on as part of the Maricopa County behavioral health services contract will go a long way toward better integrating primary and acute care and behavioral healthcare for folks with a serious mental illness. But… our success is also dependent on our regulatory reform within our Licensing shop. In fact, our current Rulemaking process to [...]
National Healthy Babies Initiative
Every year each of the folks in my job around the country (called the State Health Officers) get together and elect a President of our association (called the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials or ASTHO). Each President picks a public health challenge during his or her term. This year’s ASTHO President is Dr. David Lakey, and he’s selected [...]
Marijuana & Opiates – Recent Study Shows a Link
One of the missing ingredients in medical marijuana has been peer-reviewed science- but there is some out there. Studies are happening across the country to see how marijuana impacts and interacts with other drugs. One small-scale study done by UC San Francisco recently suggests using marijuana with opiates allowed some patients to reduce the amount of opiates needed to manage their pain. This was a small [...]
Personnel Reform
The Personnel Reform bill made some headway this week in the State Legislature. It’s a complicated bill and hasn't been through the full process yet- but I know there’s a lot of interest in it around these parts- so I’ll try to distill the current version down a little bit for our agency. Basically, if you’re Grade 19 or above [...]