In Part 1 of our Licensing blog series, we shared what a sober living home (SLH) actually is. We also explained other types of homes that are often confused for sober living homes, including behavioral health residential facilities (BHRF), which are also licensed by the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS). In this installment of [...]
In Arizona, there has recently been a large uptick in interest about “sober living homes'' from the media, government officials, members of the community, legislative members, and law enforcement. Based on the questions we’ve received in our Division of Licensing, it is clear that there is a lot of confusion surrounding what sober living homes [...]
Over the past month, there has been a lot of news around unaccompanied minors and migrant children receiving care in in Arizona. ADHS is responsible for licensing health care institutions and child care facilities in Arizona and is committed to ensuring children are in a safe and nurturing environment. In fact, the health and safety [...]
In 2013, our Licensing and Infectious Disease Services teams partnered with the Healthcare Associated Infection (HAI) Program to develop a day-long ADVICE Collaborative conference aimed at improving infection control practices. The ADVICE Collaborative brings together licensed dialysis providers, the dialysis network, federal partners and public health professionals to find new ways to promote infection control, build relationships, and identify how public health can [...]
The first big fire of the season started this week in Oak Creek Canyon- called the Slide fire. Smoke is usually the first public health impact from wildland fires. The air quality in Flagstaff and Sedona has been generally OK- but poor at times depending on the winds (smoke levels in Sedona have been high [...]
Healthcare-Associated infections are a major (often preventable) threat to patient safety. Last week the National and State Healthcare Associated Infections Progress Report expanded on previous reports- detailing progress toward the eliminating healthcare-associated infections. The HAI Progress Report found significant reductions for nearly all infections- including in AZ. Central line-associated bloodstream infections and surgical site infections [...]
One of the things I’m most proud of over the last 5 years has been the way we successfully overhauled our regulation licensed healthcare institutions in AZ. Very few government entities could have accomplished such an all-encompassing regulatory reform effort that creates a new outcome-based system that will improve public health- while maintaining support from the [...]
Over the last 18 months, our licensing team in collaboration with trade organizations from every sphere of healthcare delivery, partnered with Health Services Advisory Group (HSAG), Arizona’s Medicare Quality Improvement Organization, in its statewide initiative designed to reduce by 4000 the number of preventable hospital readmissions. Aptly named the No Place Like Home Campaign, because [...]
Our Licensing team routinely analyzes the most frequent and important deficiencies that we observe when we conduct inspections at our licensed facilities. We use the data to help educate the folks that we license… and to identify topics for provider training and technical assistance (public health interventions). For example, our medical facilities licensing team has found that infection control [...]
We owe a big round of applause to our Licensing & Rulemaking teams- who’ve spent the better part of 2 years working with hundreds of folks from numerous associations and licensed facilities as part of our regulatory reform initiative. This afternoon we filed an overhaul of 20 Articles of regulations for healthcare institutions and behavioral health service agencies including [...]
