April is National Stress Awareness Month, which brings attention to the negative impact of stress. Managing stress is an essential component of a healthy lifestyle. Knowing how to manage your stress can improve mental and physical well-being, as well as help alleviate health-related issues. Stress takes a physical toll on the body. It causes fatigue, [...]
Arizona State Hospital Civil Treatment Facility Building. The Arizona Department of Health Services has released a new series of dashboards to provide real-time public information about the Arizona State Hospital (ASH). These dashboards will be updated daily to enhance transparency and foster understanding of operations and outcomes at the Hospital’s Civil and Forensic [...]
Now that school is in full swing across the state and kids start to settle into their routines, it is important for family and friends to be aware of warning signs in kids that might require some extra attention. Recent cases of suicide in adolescents, which while heartbreaking, should serve as a way to show [...]
Childhood experiences like abuse, neglect, or household dysfunction - also called Adverse Childhood Experiences or ACEs - can have a lasting impact on children’s and adolescent health and well-being. The good news is that having people who care about them, including friends, school staff, and other adult mentors, can help lessen the negative effects of [...]
For reasons that aren't always clear, men simply don't go to the doctor as often as women. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, women visit their healthcare provider 40% more often than men. That may be an explanation for what the Washington Post recently called a "silent crisis in men's health." Data [...]
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 [...]
Like physical health, mental health is important throughout the lifespan. It continuously affects how we think, feel, and act. It also plays an important role in our physical and social well-being. Many factors can impact our mental health, including early adverse life experiences, experiences related to chronic medical conditions, biological factors, feelings of loneliness or [...]
Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being and is an essential component to our overall health. It affects how we think, feel and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Having a strong mental health outlook can benefit your life in more ways [...]
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve reflected about some of the innovative strategies that we’ve implemented with our behavioral health community partners over the last several years to improve the health status of folks with a serious mental illness. So far, I’ve covered integrated health homes and improvements to the crisis system. On the [...]
Objective evaluation is critical to assessing and improving the performance of any public health system- including the behavioral health system that we manage. One of the ways we assess our behavioral health system is to conduct a “Quality Services Review”, which identifies strengths, service capacity gaps, and areas for improvement at a system-wide level. A [...]
