Preparedness – Page 78 – AZ Dept. of Health Services News

Building a World-Class Trauma System

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:50:38-07:00March 1st, 2013|Preparedness|

Four years ago- AZ didn’t really have a trauma system. We had 7 Level I (high-end) Trauma Centers… but that’s it. After 4 years and a full court press- we now have a decent trauma system that includes 31 trauma centers, (8 Level I, 4 Level III, and 19 Level IV (16 of the Level [...]

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Strategic National Stockpile Readiness

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:50:39-07:00February 27th, 2013|General, Preparedness|

The CDC's “Strategic National Stockpile” is a large quantity of medicine and medical supplies that are available to states in case there’s a public health emergency (flu outbreak, asteroid, etc.) severe enough to cause local health supplies to run out. Once federal and local authorities agree that the stockpile is needed, meds and supplies are [...]

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ADHS to Become a HEART Safe Workplace

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:50:43-07:00February 8th, 2013|Preparedness|

Our SHARE program recognizes HEART Safe workplaces around Arizona. The HEART Safe designation is awarded to schools, places of worship, non-profit agencies and businesses. It’s not easy to earn the status – it requires implementation of policies and procedures, training staff in how to use a defibrillator and they need to be registered, serviced and [...]

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AZ’s Traumatic Brain Injury Network Developing

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:50:44-07:00February 6th, 2013|General, Preparedness|

Traumatic brain injury is involved in about 1/3 of all injury-related deaths- it’s clearly a public health issue. That’s why we created Arizona's Excellence in Pre-hospital Injury Care project- which is aimed at improving brain injury outcomes in AZ. The National Institutes of Health chose AZ as the only state to evaluate the national standards [...]

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Studying Vaccine Choice

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:50:45-07:00January 25th, 2013|Preparedness, Prevention|

As I mentioned in a blog post a few weeks ago, more AZ parents are choosing not to vaccinate their kids- and using “personal exemptions” when they enroll their kids in school. If the trend continues, we could jeopardize our immunization rates enough so that we'd see long gone diseases like measles and mumps return in [...]

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Annual Preparedness “Reportcard”

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:50:46-07:00January 15th, 2013|Preparedness|

Every year a group called the Trust for America’s Health puts out a ‘Report Card” regarding what they believe is an assessment of each state’s readiness for a public health emergency. They use various measurements that they can find and grade each state against each other. The implication is that states that do poorly won’t [...]

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New Flu Application Released by CDC

By Will Humble|2013-01-07T12:32:15-07:00January 7th, 2013|Preparedness|

The CDC released a free application last month that allows users to access current influenza recommendations and influenza activity updates. You can click here to download. You'll be able to check our where we are relative to the rest of the country and view the new methods of analysis presented on the new site. On our flu [...]

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Preventing Healthcare Associated Infections: An AZ Winnable Battle

By Will Humble|2017-02-10T09:50:47-07:00January 4th, 2013|Licensing, Preparedness|

Healthcare-associated infections are a critical public health challenge in Arizona and in the US. Healthcare associated infections (HAIs) are acquired during healthcare treatment and can be devastating and even deadly- and they’re largely preventable. You may have seen the article in last week's Republic about dirty needles and their link to transmission of viruses and drug-resistant superbugs. The article [...]

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Dispensary Zoning Case

By Will Humble|2012-12-13T17:11:26-07:00December 13th, 2012|Preparedness|

Last week a Superior Court judge ordered Maricopa County to process the zoning paperwork that has been submitted by the applicant for the Sun City CHAA. The Maricopa County Attorney asked for a Stay of the decision while he appealed the case to the Court of Appeals. This morning, the Superior Court judge denied that request [...]

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RSV on the Upswing in AZ

By Will Humble|2012-12-12T08:27:20-07:00December 12th, 2012|Preparedness, Prevention|

We're off to an early start with the flu and RSV season this year with more cases reported in November than in previous seasons. Respiratory syncytial virus (or RSV) is a respiratory virus that mainly affects little kids and circulates during the winter. There’s no vaccine for RSV- but for those babies that are at highest [...]

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