Twenty-two employees from ADHS and members of their families teamed up last week and joined the national effort to rid the nation and our state of homelessness. The beginning step is to produce clear evidence of the need by providing the government of (as closely as we can) the actual number of people who are [...]
On January 15, 2011, Governor Brewer released her proposed budget for next fiscal year (which begins July 1, 2011). One of the budget items would change AHCCCS (Medicaid) eligibility for adults without children (called childless adults). The ADHS currently provides behavioral health services to approximately 5,200 persons with serious mental illnesses that are childless adults. [...]
I know many of you are following the tragedy that occurred over the weekend in Tucson. If you’re like me, you’ve been trying to make sense of something that is senseless. It is not uncommon to have a variety of reactions to a sudden and violent event such as this, and you may be struggling [...]
The US Department of Health and Human Services is in line to receive $11 Billion in funding over the next 5 years for the operation, expansion and construction of health centers nationwide. These funds will be made available through a nationwide competitive grant application process. Our Bureau of Health Systems Development is the Arizona designated [...]
The name of the game for Public Health Prevention in 2011 is integration and leverage. Our Public Health Prevention Team will be focusing on the social determinants of health and working to implement policies, systems and environmental changes that make the healthy choices easy. Here are some examples of our public health prevention priorities for the [...]
Last week, I outlined goals and priorities for the Licensing Division in the coming year. This week I’ll hit on the Division of Behavioral Health… One of our primary objectives will be to better integrate behavioral health, physical health, and wellness at the "retail" level (i.e. at the point of care). By strengthening integration and [...]
Our Raise Your Voice Behavioral Health Forums are going quite well. You’ll remember that our objective for the Forums is to help us transform our behavioral health system for the better. Our behavioral health team has been traveling to most parts of the state to hold focus groups including 14 in Maricopa County and focus [...]
A couple of weeks ago I planned to open the docket to overhaul the Administrative Code (Rules) that we use to evaluate and monitor health and safety in licensed behavioral health facilities in AZ. That plan was based on the assumption that the Medical Marijuana Act was going down to defeat because at that time [...]
Arizona citizens with a serious mental illness have a life expectancy that’s 30 years less than the general population. These folks don’t die early because of their mental illness; rather, they die from preventable physical health conditions like obesity, smoking, lung disease, stroke and heart disease. That’s why the Department is partnering with the Milbank [...]
If you or one of your family members receives behavioral health services in Arizona, it’s time to raise your voice and be heard. Over the next few weeks our ADHS Behavioral Health System Transformation Team will be sponsoring a series of forums so that folks can express their opinions about how we should shape the [...]
