Behavioral Health

/Behavioral Health

Behavioral Health covers topics dealing with mental health in our state. This ranges from information about programs to help individuals have good mental health to Governmental topics like Regional Behavioral Health Authorities.

Working Together for Health & Wellness

By | September 21st, 2011|Behavioral Health|

We’ve had to make lots of difficult decisions in response to the ongoing funding shortfalls in our behavioral health system (as well as everywhere in state government).  Many decisions (while painful in the short term) have been necessary to maintain long term system stability as Arizona continues to emerge from this unprecedented fiscal crisis.  While [...]

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Behavioral Health Kicking the Habit

By | September 13th, 2011|Behavioral Health, General|

For the past 16 months, our folks in the Division of Behavioral health and our Bureau of Tobacco and Chronic Disease and ASHline have been working to train clinical behavioral health staff in Maricopa and Pima Counties on how to get folks into smoking cessation (quit) services.  The overall goal of this collaboration was to establish [...]

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Hospital Pass Reboot

By | September 12th, 2011|Behavioral Health|

Back in June a resident of our Arizona Community Protection and Treatment Center (ACPTC) (one of our civilly committed sex offenders) escaped while he was on an approved pass to go to church.  He was found by Tempe police later that day.  Because of the security issues that the event raised, I asked the staff [...]

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The ABC’s of Medicare

By | August 29th, 2011|Behavioral Health, Licensing|

By now you know all about our goal of improving integration of care for individuals with a serious mental illness.  In looking more closely at this population, we noticed that about 50% of folks with a serious mental illness who are enrolled with Medicaid (AHCCCS) are also enrolled in Medicare… meaning that they’re “dual eligible.” [...]

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Behavioral Health Consumer Survey Results

By | July 27th, 2011|Behavioral Health|

Our 2010 Annual Behavioral Health Consumer Survey results are in, and the outcomes are encouraging!  Each year, we conduct 2 surveys based on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Mental Health Statistics Improvement Program (MHSIP) consumer surveys: They are the Adult Consumer Survey and the Youth Services for Families. The surveys request feedback [...]

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Behavioral Health Outcome Dashboards Really Taking Off

By | July 18th, 2011|Behavioral Health|

One of our primary objectives over the last couple of years in behavioral health has been to shift the focus of our performance measures away from process and procedures toward actual outcomes.  In other words, we don’t want to measure our success on whether someone’s paperwork is right, but on whether the services we provide [...]

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“Raise Your Voice!” Report

By | July 15th, 2011|Behavioral Health, General|

Our behavioral health coalition completed and published our brand-new Raise Your Voice! Report... a product of our behavioral health focus groups with peers and family members in late 2010.  We’re most proud of the fact that the entire process—from beginning to end—had the full participation or peers and family members (from the Arizona Peer and Family Coalition) in planning, organizing, leading [...]

Behavioral Health Integration Progressing

By | July 12th, 2011|Behavioral Health|

You'll remember that ADHS and AHCCCS jointly applied for and received a $750K Planning Grant to explore integrating primary health care and behavioral health care- especially for folks with serious mental illnesses.  Our teams have been very busy over the last couple of weeks getting the initiative underway.  One of the concepts we're exploring is a specialty Regional [...]

Forensic Unit Jelling

By | July 11th, 2011|Behavioral Health|

The construction on our new Forensic Unit at the Hospital is moving right along.  The plumbing and electrical systems, heating and cooling systems, and the wall/ceiling trim are now complete in all the new buildings.  Hot and chilled water pump controllers were recently installed which allowed the air handler to start up.   Once the kinks [...]

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Filling the Gaps

By | July 3rd, 2011|Behavioral Health|

We made more progress filling our key positions in behavioral health this week. We're delighted that Ashraf Lasee, MPH, Dr.PH, M.B.B.S has agreed to serve as our new Division Chief for Quality Management.  Ashraf has a keen respect for data and understands the importance of solid data collection and analysis in driving quality improvement.  She recognizes the importantance of data integrity, understands its importance in program performance [...]

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