General

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Here you will find topics ranging from current events that affect public health in Arizona to overall information about the Arizona Department of Health Services

Collaborating Across the Pacific

By | November 16th, 2013|General|

You may have noticed some new faces around the ADHS the past few months as we have been hosting visiting Professors from Korea, Japan, and this coming year from Singapore.  The two Professors who are currently working with us are Dr. Sungwoo Moon from Korea University and Dr. Taro Irisawa from Osaka University in Japan.  They’re Emergency Physicians [...]

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AZ Food Safety Report

By | November 16th, 2013|General|

Our core environmental health responsibilities include administering the statewide public health sanitation program for food safety, bottled water, hotels and motels, children’s camps, public schools, and public and semi-public swimming pools.  We delegate most of the actual inspection work to the county health departments.  We finished our 2012 statewide Annual Report last week.  Last fiscal year [...]

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New Foster Care Toolkit

By | November 16th, 2013|General|

The ADES & Magellan of Arizona have developed a new Foster Care Toolkit to help foster families navigate the support system that’s available for foster families.  It’s a one-stop guide connecting them to resources to make their job a little easier.  The Toolkit includes information to help current and prospective foster parents connect with community resources [...]

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Valley Fever Awareness

By | November 14th, 2013|General, Preparedness|

Guest blog by Jessica Rigler, Bureau of Epidemiology and Disease Control 11th Annual Valley Fever Awareness Week Valley Fever is a lung infection caused a fungus in the soil here in Arizona.  People get it by breathing in Valley Fever spores in the air. Most people will have no symptoms or recover after a few [...]

MM “Declaratory Judgment”

By | November 13th, 2013|General|

A Complaint was filed against the ADHS and others last week.  It’s called a “Request for Declaratory Judgment and Permanent and Preliminary Injunction”.  It basically asks the Court to declare that: 1) extracts and resins from the marijuana plant are protected in the definition of “Useable Marijuana” under the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act; and 2) dispensaries, patients, caregivers, [...]

AZ Medical Marijuana @ 2

By | November 12th, 2013|General|

Our Vital Health Statistics team along with our partners at the UA College of Public Health completed our Year 2 Annual Report for the Arizona Medical Marijuana Program last week. You’ll find a wide range of information in the report including data about the demographics and kinds and qualifying conditions of our cardholders, geographic distribution [...]

UA to Offer MPH in Health Services Administration

By | October 31st, 2013|General|

To help meet the growing demand for health care administrators the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at the U of A (in Phoenix) will begin offering a new accredited Master of Public Health in Health Services Administration program in fall 2014. The health services administration program will provide students with the knowledge [...]

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New Vaccine Exemption Form Being Used this Year

By | October 28th, 2013|General|

Arizona law requires kids to receive certain vaccines in order to attend school unless a doctor signs a medical exemption form or a parent signs a religious or personal beliefs exemption form.  There has been an increasing number of parents who are signing exemption forms- putting herd immunity at risk in some parts of the [...]

Patient Confidentiality: Public Health’s Sacred Trust

By | October 17th, 2013|General|

  Public health surveillance is a cornerstone of public health practice…  and the effectiveness of that surveillance system rests on a foundation of patient confidentiality.  The public’s consent for allowing their personal medical information to be reported is made with the understanding that the data will be kept confidential.  The moment we jeopardize the trust, [...]

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Evaluating a Trauma System II

By | October 17th, 2013|General|

A couple of weeks ago, I introduced the concept of “Over Triage”…  which is when EMS transports a patient to the highest level of care (like a level I trauma center) when they could have taken them to a level III or IV trauma center closer to their home.  The downside of over-triage is that [...]

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