AZ Vigilant Guard Update- Be Prepared to Stay, Be Prepared to Go.
As you’ve probably heard over the past couple weeks, we are preparing for our big exercise on Nov. 4. The exercise scenario will prompt public health departments to make decisions about evacuation and sheltering in place. There are lots of factors that come into play when making these decisions. In some situations it may be better to stay indoors and [...]
Turning a Bad Survey into a Learning Opportunity
Those of you in Licensing have heard me talk about the difference between compliance and enforcement more than once, but it's been awhile since I've written about the subject. Some people are confused about the distinction I always make between compliance and enforcement. They are 2 very different things. Compliance (as it relates to our licensees) means that a facility or [...]
New Teen Pregnancy Prevention Contracts in Place
Last week we awarded 4 community-based contracts for the new Personal Responsibility Education Program funds to prevent teen pregnancy in AZ. The funding we’ll be passing through to our new contractors is part of the Affordable Care Act- and requires programs educate adolescents on both abstinence and contraception as ways to prevent pregnancy and STDs. All projects we selected for funding [...]
The Arizona Child Fatality Review Program
The death of any child is a tragedy – for the family and for the community. Almost 20 years ago, an idea was created to systematically review all child deaths in order to find ways to prevent similar deaths going forward. In past years this focus has raised the awareness about child drowning or the importance of putting babies to [...]
Multiple Chronic Conditions- an Expensive Public Health Threat
I’ve written several pieces over the last few weeks highlighting our efforts to better integrate primary healthcare into the treatment plans for folks with mental illnesses- but the issue of providing better coordinated care for folks with multiple chronic medical conditions is really far bigger than this integration issue. More than 25% of Americans have multiple chronic conditions like arthritis, asthma, [...]
Forensic Unit Open House
We had a very nice Open House event for the new Arizona State Forensic Units yesterday. The new facility will be a huge help and will be much more conducive to helping our patients on their recovery path. It’ll also really improve the working conditions for our dedicated staff- and will make their mission to help our patients easier. Environment really does influence how [...]