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 [...]
For many years, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has required inpatient hospitals that serve people under 21 to be accredited by The Joint Commission (formerly called the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations or JCAHO). Because the Commission standards are pretty rigorous, we’ve had limited network capacity for the inpatient treatment [...]
The HHS announced availability of the “Health Center New Access Point” Grants. Up to $250M is available for the delivery of primary health care services for underserved and vulnerable populations under the Health Center Program. A new access point is a new full-time service delivery site that provides comprehensive primary and preventive health care services. [...]
Did you know that we issue nearly 20,000 licenses every year- on everything from hospitals to childcare centers, midwives, trauma centers and sanitarians? We’re required to have meet certain time-frames for each license or approval the Department issues- and we issue a lot of licenses. If we don’t process the license within the timeframe, we’re [...]
Each year in the US there are 1.7 million health care associated infections that cause approximately 99,000 deaths in US hospitals. There are lots of germs that can cause health care associated infections, but 16% are in the really bad category because they’re resistant to antibiotics. These multidrug-resistant organisms pose huge problems once they get [...]
Last month, the City of Phoenix submitted a complaint against a supervisory care center in Phoenix, alleging neglect of the residents. Our team from Assisted Living Licensing worked with the Phoenix Police Department, Phoenix Fire Department, and a Phoenix neighborhood association to conduct an investigation of the supervisory care center. The investigation substantiated that approximately [...]
We have developed a new computer application and website to support the new abortion reporting requirements introduced with the passing of SB1304 into law. This new law requires additional information to be provided to AHDS when abortions are performed or complications develop. Currently, medical providers are required to report particular information to ADHS in an effort to collect [...]
was held at ASU July 27th -29th. This is the first time that we have brought together all of the fields of infectious disease including HIV, TB, STDs, Vector-borne Disease, Foodborne Disease and Invasive Bacterial Infections in a unified training. The training: Had almost 300 attendees from across the state, including physicians, nurses, sanitarians, local health [...]
Last month we approved the renewal of the fifth and final year of the Magellan behavioral health contract in Maricopa County. Before making the decision to grant the 5th year of the contract, our team assessed the progress that has been made in various areas, including access to and coordination of care; grievance and appeal [...]
Last October a person that was awaiting a civil commitment hearing escaped from our Arizona Community Protection and Treatment Center ACPTC, which provides for the civil commitment of people who have a mental disorder that predisposes them to commit sexual acts that pose a danger to the health and safety of others. Fortunately the person that [...]
