General

Web-Based EMT Certification Coming Soon

By azdhs-admin|2017-02-10T09:51:23-07:00December 21st, 2011|General, Licensing|

As our IT team was developing the electronic medical marijuana application tool they started seeing that the code they were writing had potential uses in other parts of the agency. In other words- that the basics of the Code could be used to electronify some of our other business lines. We looked for areas that consumed [...]

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Acing the Preparedness Test

By azdhs-admin|2011-12-20T08:32:49-07:00December 20th, 2011|General|

Disease detection and swift and effective public health interventions are essential to saving lives in a public health emergency. According to a new report from the CDC on Public Health Preparedness, Arizona's public health system is ready and well-prepared. The CDC report outlines the Department’s ability to detect and respond to a wide range of public [...]

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Sharpening the Axe

By azdhs-admin|2017-02-10T09:51:24-07:00December 19th, 2011|Behavioral Health, General|

There's a well-known quote attributed to Abe Lincoln that goes something like this: "Give me 6 hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first 4 sharpening the axe." Maybe somebody will someday quote me as saying: "Give us 20 months to transform the delivery of behavioral health and primary care services to address the [...]

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Community Health Diagnostics

By azdhs-admin|2017-02-10T09:51:24-07:00December 15th, 2011|General|

Last week I wrote about the Health Care/Public Health Continuum… in which I described how in the public health world the community is the patient. In order to assess and better help the patient we need to have indicators and surveillance data to help us construct and implement interventions. One of our primary goals over [...]

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Medicare Physician Bonus Program

By azdhs-admin|2011-12-14T08:34:16-07:00December 14th, 2011|General|

The Fed’s operate a Medicare Physician Bonus Program to encourage doctors to work in underserved areas and improve access to care for folks on Medicare. Certain physicians (including MDs, DOs, dentists, podiatrists, and chiropractors) are eligible to receive a 10% bonus if they’re providing services to Medicare beneficiaries in a geographic primary care Health Professional [...]

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Medicare Moves Upstream

By azdhs-admin|2017-02-10T09:51:24-07:00December 13th, 2011|General, Prevention|

Keeping off the pounds is tough at any age. Now seniors are getting a helping hand from Medicare. Last month Medicare announced that it’s adding coverage for nutritional and behavioral counseling for those who are obese as measured by body mass index or BMI. BMI is a tool which measures weight status for adults- and [...]

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Patient Confidentiality: A Cornerstone of Public Health Practice

By azdhs-admin|2017-02-10T09:51:25-07:00December 8th, 2011|General|

When we think about holding things in confidence- several relationships come to mind that have a long history built on trust and the sharing of deeply private information. Most of us can name these relationships with ease… husband and wife… lawyer and client… health care providers, public health officials and patients. These relationships exist for [...]

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Forging a New Trauma Tool

By azdhs-admin|2011-12-07T08:12:41-07:00December 7th, 2011|General, Prevention|

Kudos to our EMS and Trauma System team for forging some new tools to improve trauma care in AZ. Our Data and Quality Assurance team developed an innovative benchmarking tool that’s shared with each of AZ’s trauma centers. The tool shows each facility their injury specific survival rates and compares those rates to the (blinded) other [...]

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Home Birth Protest

By azdhs-admin|2011-12-06T08:14:45-07:00December 6th, 2011|General, Licensing|

Those of you that were working at our downtown campus last Wednesday afternoon may have seen the 100 or so folks carrying placards in front of our 150 Building. They were asking us to make it easier to have a home-birth in AZ. How can we do that, you ask? Many of you probably didn’t [...]

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A Virus is Born

By azdhs-admin|2017-02-10T09:51:25-07:00December 5th, 2011|General, Preparedness|

The CDC confirmed the birth of a new influenza virus in this week’s MMWR Weekly Report. The newborn is named “Swine-origin Triple Reassortant Influenza A (H3N2) (S-OtrH3N2)”. The hybrid virus was found in a handful of school-age kids in Iowa recently- and luckily the kids recovered and none were hospitalized. Nobody outside the initial cluster has been infected [...]

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