Regulatory Relief in a Public Health Emergency
I often write about the benefits and leverage we can achieve for our public health goals by partnering with external organizations and Stakeholders, but sometimes the collaborative initiatives are with ourself. Our Medical Facility Licensing and Emergency Preparedness teams have been working with our licensed facilities to figure out what they’d need in terms of regulatory relief if there’s a [...]
Mental Health First Aid Coming to Arizona
Mental Health First Aid is a novel, evidence-based public education program designed to teach non-professional people a five-step process to assess a situation, select and implement appropriate interventions, and help a person in crisis or who may be developing the signs and symptoms of mental illness. The groundbreaking training equips people to provide initial help until appropriate professional, peer or [...]
Medical Marijuana Public Comment session
We had the second of four public hearings on the draft rules in Tempe on Tuesday afternoon. We got a lot of good input from folks and there were some good suggestions to improve the draft rule. The most valuable comments came from people that offered concrete ideas for ways we can improve the rule's effectiveness. There are two more [...]
Maricopa County Measles Case
Maricopa County Department of Public Health (and our Lab) confirmed a case of measles in an Arizona resident this week. Measles is one of the most communicable diseases there is (next to chicken pox). It’s a viral disease of the upper respiratory system that’s spread in the air via droplets. Measles starts with a fever and cough, eye irritation and [...]
Public Health Outcome Measures
Last week I wrote about our Behavioral Health Outcomes Dashboard <https://directorsblog.health.azdhs.gov/?p=1117> - which highlights our efforts to shift our performance measures toward actual outcomes. In other words, we want to measure whether the services we provide actually help folks achieve their goals rather than whether someone’s paperwork is right. The same is true for public health- our goal is to [...]
Good work Assisted Living Team
We’ve made a strong effort in the past couple years to make sure that we are doing our best to protect the health and safety of people in our licensed facilities. Whenever possible, we work to help those facilities come into compliance with our rules, but sometimes we have no choice but to drop the hammer of enforcement, which is [...]