Open Letter to Arizona Physicians on Medical Marijuana
Laura Nelson, M.D.. Chief Medical Officer, Arizona Department of Health Services Will Humble, Director, Arizona Department of Health ServicesThank you for your interest in the effective implementation of the AZ Medical Marijuana Act. We realize that many Arizona physicians may not yet feel comfortable with or fully informed about medicinal marijuana. It is likely that some of your patients will [...]
Trace Levels of Iodine-131 found in AZ Milk
Last week I wrote about how Arizona Radiation Regulatory Agency (ARRA) instruments detected trace levels of Iodine-131 in AZ air from the troubled nuclear power plant in Japan. This week testing by ARRA and the AZ Dept. of Agriculture found trace levels of I-131 in the milk samples that they routinely monitor. The levels are of no public health consequence (they’re thousands of [...]
Health Homes Planning Grant
Awhile back the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released preliminary guidance to state Medicaid agencies (AHCCCS) regarding a new federal funding opportunity to coordinate and integrate primary, acute, behavioral health, and long term supports for folks with chronic illnesses. The guidance encouraged state Medicaid agencies to work with partners to provide technical assistance for quality home and community-based services, [...]
Death Certificates In-House Now
Lots of people know that our Office of Vital Records is the statewide data hub for birth certificates, but we’re also in charge of death certificates. The program we use for death certificates is called the “Vital Statistics Information Management System”. The system used to be supported by a contractor in Utah, but no more. We set a goal a [...]
Ultra Brief CPR Videos Work
Each year, almost 300,000 people suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrests in the United States. Survival rates from these events tend to be extremely low. However, research has shown that hands-only bystander CPR can triple survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. The problem is that bystanders that witness a cardiac arrest only attempt CPR about 26% of the time- and getting more people [...]
What’s Cosmic Radiation Anyway?
In a previous blog post, I talked about how all of us are exposed to natural radiation on a daily basis. It mostly comes from space (called cosmic rays) as well as natural radioactive materials found in the soil, water and air. Some people were wondering what cosmic rays are. Cosmic rays are actually energetically charged particles that originate in outer space [...]