Preparedness – Page 32 – AZ Dept. of Health Services Director's Blog

Items in the Preparedness category will cover everything from Emergency Medical Services to vaccination programs. This division at ADHS tracks contagious disease, coordinates emergency preparedness activity, licenses EMTs and Paramedics, regulates ambulance companies, authorizes special hospital designations like cardiac care center and Level IV trauma center, issues birth and death certificates, and tracks critical health data through various sources including hospital discharge information.

The Advent of Big Data

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:21-07:00 January 3rd, 2015|Preparedness|

We collect all kinds of surveillance about prevalence of disease, birth, causes of death, reasons for hospital visits, smoking rates and hundreds of other indicators to help us assess health indicators and design interventions to improve outcomes. For the first time ever in 2014, we developed a tool to explore this data and visualize it [...]

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Arizona Aces Latest CDC Public Health Preparedness Report Card

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:22-07:00 December 18th, 2014|Preparedness|

Every year the CDC evaluates each of the states on their public health preparedness performance. Arizona continued to score high marks on this year’s preparedness report card. We got a perfect score this year for biological laboratory testing, and we’ve kept our excellent performance measures for incident management, medical countermeasures, and public information. Our response [...]

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What’s a CON, Anyway?

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:22-07:00 December 17th, 2014|Preparedness|

Arizona uses a Certificate of Necessity (CON) system to regulate ground ambulance service in Arizona - and to make sure that every place in the State has adequate emergency medical services, including the frontier parts of Arizona. The CON actually describes the geographic service area, level of service (advanced life support or basic life support), [...]

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U of A Health Network Steps Up

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:23-07:00 December 8th, 2014|Preparedness|

The University of Arizona Health Network joined the Maricopa Integrated Health System last week by committing to become an Infectious Disease Treatment Center of Excellence. By recognizing MIHS and UAHN as Infectious Disease Treatment Centers of Excellence, Arizona will be better able to: 1) develop a seamless infectious disease response plan as new infectious diseases emerge; [...]

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Council on Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response Preliminary Report Released

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:23-07:00 December 1st, 2014|Preparedness|

On October 21 Governor Brewer issued Executive Order 2014-08 establishing the Council on Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response. The Council was charged with developing and implementing a coordinated comprehensive plan to ensure Arizona's public health infrastructure is prepared for the potential outbreak of infectious diseases, such as the Ebola virus, influenza, enterovirus, tuberculosis, and other [...]

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Time to Comment on Newborn Screening Rules

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:24-07:00 November 21st, 2014|Licensing, Preparedness|

Last month I wrote about how we are working on revising our Newborn Screening rules because of a change in state law. The changes include requiring hearing tests on all newborns, adding critical congenital heart defects screening and adding a screening for severe combined immunodeficiency started January 2016. The last test depends on whether we [...]

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Medical Marijuana Year 3 Report Published

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:25-07:00 November 13th, 2014|Preparedness|

Our Vital Health Statistics team along with our partners at the UA College of Public Health completed our Medical Marijuana Program’s 3rd Annual Report this 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 and rates as well [...]

Arizona On Track to Recognize 1st Infectious Disease Treatment Center of Excellence

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:26-07:00 November 7th, 2014|Preparedness|

We just finished the second meeting of the Governor’s Council on Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response. At the 1st meeting (a couple of weeks ago) we outlined key priorities: 1) identifying an “Infectious Disease Treatment Center of Excellence” that would be proficient at treating emerging infectious diseases such as Ebola; 2) developing a parallel emergency medical [...]

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It’s Valley Fever Awareness Week!

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:26-07:00 November 7th, 2014|Preparedness|

Did you know Valley Fever (Coccidioidomycosis) is one of the most commonly reported infectious diseases in Arizona? While most people infected with Valley Fever experience mild or no symptoms at all, some suffer from more severe symptoms including pneumonia or the spread of the fungus to other parts of the body, including the brain. Although [...]

This Week’s Ebola Preparedness Work

By Will Humble| 2017-02-10T09:49:27-07:00 November 3rd, 2014|Preparedness|

We held our first Governor’s Council on Infectious Disease Preparedness and Response meeting late last week. The Council outlined 2 priorities…identifying a hospital or hospitals in Arizona that would be responsible for treating any Ebola patient, and improving outreach to physicians across the state to ensure that they have the information needed to effectively identify [...]

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ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH SERVICES

Health and Wellness for All Arizonans

ARIZONA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH SERVICES

Health and Wellness for All Arizonans

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