Once in a while we have a tremendous opportunity for a great leader to join our team, but not very often. We just posted the Assistant Director for Public Health Licensing. The person we’re looking for will be able to take a great team and make it better. This person will be collaborating with partners [...]
There’s widespread agreement within the public health community that the percentage of women who deliver by Cesarean Section these days is too high. In fact, 1/3 of women in the US have cesarean deliveries these days (up from 9.5% in 1990 and 23% in 2008). Last week the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and [...]
We rolled out a new electronic birth certificate system this week that will be a game-changer for public health. Our system (which took about 18 months to plan, create & launch) will help us collect better surveillance data for our Winnable Battles like obesity, tobacco use, substance abuse, and better data about birth outcomes that will help [...]
Decisions about what to do to protect babies born at home from Group B Streptococcus caused quite a stir as we were developing our final regulations for the practice of Midwifery in AZ. Group B Streptococcus bacteria are commonly found in healthy women. In fact, about 25% carry the bacteria. It doesn’t cause much of [...]
Our Licensing & Rulemaking teams have spent the better part of 18 months working with hundreds of folks from numerous associations and licensed facilities as part of our regulatory reform initiative. We’ve been overhauling 18 Articles of regulations for Healthcare Institutions and Behavioral Health Service Agencies including hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, outpatient surgery and treatment centers, recovery [...]
The American Academy of Pediatrics put out a new policy statement called “Planned Home Birth” this week. The Policy Document summarizes the standards of care for newborn infants born at home. It’s designed to help pediatricians provide supportive, informed advice to women considering home birth. The AAP Report says they agree with the American College of [...]
The next meeting of the Midwifery Scope of Practice Advisory Committee will be from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday April 3, 2013 at the State Laboratory Conference Room located at 250 N. 17th Avenue in Phoenix. Here’s the agenda for the meeting. Our Rules team is still working on the set of draft [...]
Our next Midwifery Scope of Practice Advisory Committee meeting will be Monday (February 11th) from 5-8 pm in the Lab conference room. The expanded Agenda will have more time for presentations and comments. We’ll have presentations from some of the advisory committee members, a discussion of the latest iteration of the working draft regulations and more [...]
The role of a surveyor can be a difficult one. Our team of licensing surveyors need to maintain neutrality as regulators and be able to apply the Arizona Administrative Code (otherwise known as “the rules”) to a wide variety of facilities within the healthcare system. Part of our surveillance includes investigating complaints- which can be generated from [...]
As I mentioned before, one of the great things about this country is the ability to get involved in your government to make things happen. Well, today was another important step for the midwife group as they fulfilled an important part of the process outlined in a bill that was successfully run through the legislative [...]
