Raising Arizona Babies
Do you know someone who’s pregnant and needs help finding low-cost prenatal care? Someone looking for post-partum depression resources; help with breastfeeding; low-cost dental care; or the nearest WIC clinic? One great resource that can help is our Pregnancy & Breastfeeding Hotline. The Hotline (1-800-833-4642) is a statewide service funded by our Title V Maternal and Child Health Block Grant and [...]
AZ’s New Pandemic Readiness Plan
Remember our responses to the 2009-2010 H1N1 Pandemic? One of the reasons why Arizona’s public health responses were so effective was that we had a well researched and tested pandemic readiness plan. But... public health readiness isn’t a static process, and once the pandemic was finished we set out to revise our plan with lessons learned. Over the last few months our [...]
A Look in the Mirror
Many folks don’t know that our Licensing division undergoes a periodic audit (survey) to look at compliance to our Federal contract with the Centers for Medicare Medicaid Services (CMS). This past week, 3 surveyors from the regional office of CMS came to review our Long Term Care and Medical Facilities areas. This survey centered on complaint surveys and their prioritization, [...]
Healthy Homes
For decades, removing lead (Pb) from the environment has been a public health priority because residual contamination from decades of using products containing harmful lead continued to cause health problems. Fortunately, the public health interventions (removing Pb from gas, paint, and cans) worked and today 99.9% of Arizona kids have blood lead levels below the standard. As a result, the CDC has [...]
Behavioral Health Kicking the Habit
For the past 16 months, our folks in the Division of Behavioral health and our Bureau of Tobacco and Chronic Disease and ASHline have been working to train clinical behavioral health staff in Maricopa and Pima Counties on how to get folks into smoking cessation (quit) services. The overall goal of this collaboration was to establish a systemic change within the [...]
Own your Own Health Data
For years, you’ve heard that you should take your health care into your own hands It may soon be easier – the federal Health and Human Services Secretary wants you to be able to access your electronic health care records. One key argument to give people access is if they know what is there, they will ask better questions or [...]