Healthy Schools
I thought I’d do a piece on school environmental health now that school’s back in session. About 1 million Arizona kids and 100,000 adults spend a big chunk of their day in Arizona’s public, private and charter schools. Because schools can often be crowded environments, it’s important operate them in a way that maximizes a healthy environment. A few years [...]
Council of State Government’s Award Nomination
In early September the Council of State Governments (CSG) will be awarding their highly competitive CSG Awards for innovative practices. Magellan Health Services of Arizona is a regional finalist for the award because of their innovative online provider outcomes dashboard. The dashboard has been a partnership between our Division of Behavioral Services, Magellan and 4 adult provider network organizations (CHOICES [...]
Acting Shmackting
I’m glad to announce that Rodgers Wilson, MD is our permanent Behavioral Health Medical Director. Dr. Wilson oversees the clinical/prevention and quality management/medical management areas of our behavioral health system. He has spearheaded Quarterly Health Initiatives that address common physical health needs among individuals with behavioral health illnesses and is currently developing collaborative training programs for identifying individuals with traumatic [...]
AZ a National Runner-up for Nutrition Pilot
An Arizona team from ADHS and ADES put together a great application for the new USDA pilot program called the Healthy Incentives Pilot, which provides incentives to encourage low-income folks to eat more fruits and vegetables. Massachusetts came in first and got the grant, but our applications came in second. The pilot program would have researched whether incentives for participants [...]
ADHS Scores New Heat Illness Prevention Grant
The scorching summer of 2005 motivated us to get our act together and do a better job preventing heat related illnesses in Arizona. That summer, we completed a needs assessment and developed a Heat Emergency Response Plan and Heat Brochure that identifies interventions using triggers from the National Weather Service. These days, we identify risk factors and strategies to improve [...]
Marijuana (Cannabis) in AZ’s Nursing Homes?
Close your eyes and imagine you're one of our surveyors, you're doing an inspection of a nursing home or assisted living center and you find residents smoking marijuana. Could that really happen? Maybe. One of the provisions of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act talks about the ways nursing homes and assisted living centers (that we license) can manage marijuana use among residents (if [...]