Preparedness

/Preparedness

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.

Palo Verde Nuclear Exercise

By | March 6th, 2013|Preparedness|

Today our preparedness team will participate in a drill (graded by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) to test our response to a simulated radiation release from the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station.  The exercise simulates an event where people, food or drinking water could become contaminated in the very unlikely event that there were to be a release of [...]

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Next Season’s Influenza Vaccine

By | March 5th, 2013|Preparedness, Prevention|

Just as our influenza season winds down (and it is), it's time to plan for the next one.  Every February the World Health Organization convenes a panel of experts to look at the most current data on the circulating flu strains from around the world and makes recommendations for the next season’s Northern Hemisphere flu vaccine.  [...]

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Building a World-Class Trauma System

By | March 1st, 2013|Preparedness|

 Four years ago- AZ didn’t really have a trauma system.  We had 7 Level I (high-end) Trauma Centers…  but that’s it.  After 4 years and a full court press- we now have a decent trauma system that includes 31 trauma centers, (8 Level I, 4 Level III, and 19 Level IV (16 of the Level [...]

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Strategic National Stockpile Readiness

By | February 27th, 2013|General, Preparedness|

The CDC's “Strategic National Stockpile” is a large quantity of medicine and medical supplies that are available to states in case there’s a public health emergency (flu outbreak, asteroid, etc.) severe enough to cause local health supplies to run out.  Once federal and local authorities agree that the stockpile is needed, meds and supplies are [...]

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ADHS to Become a HEART Safe Workplace

By | February 8th, 2013|Preparedness|

Our SHARE program recognizes HEART Safe workplaces around Arizona.  The HEART Safe designation is awarded to schools, places of worship, non-profit agencies and businesses.  It’s not easy to earn the status – it requires implementation of policies and procedures, training staff in how to use a defibrillator and they need to be registered, serviced and [...]

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AZ’s Traumatic Brain Injury Network Developing

By | February 6th, 2013|General, Preparedness|

Traumatic brain injury is involved in about 1/3 of all injury-related deaths- it’s clearly a public health issue.  That’s why we created Arizona's Excellence in Pre-hospital Injury Care project- which is aimed at improving brain injury outcomes in AZ. The National Institutes of Health chose AZ as the only state to evaluate the national standards [...]

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Studying Vaccine Choice

By | January 25th, 2013|Preparedness, Prevention|

As I mentioned in a blog post a few weeks ago, more AZ parents are choosing not to vaccinate their kids- and using “personal exemptions” when they enroll their kids in school.  If the trend continues, we could jeopardize our immunization rates enough so that we'd see long gone diseases like measles and mumps return in [...]

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Annual Preparedness “Reportcard”

By | January 15th, 2013|Preparedness|

Every year a group called the Trust for America’s Health puts out a ‘Report Card” regarding what they believe is an assessment of each state’s readiness for a public health emergency.  They use various measurements that they can find and grade each state against each other.  The implication is that states that do poorly won’t [...]

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New Flu Application Released by CDC

By | January 7th, 2013|Preparedness|

The CDC released a free application last month that allows users to access current influenza recommendations and influenza activity updates. You can click here to download. You'll be able to check our where we are relative to the rest of the country and view the new methods of analysis presented on the new site.  On our flu [...]

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Preventing Healthcare Associated Infections: An AZ Winnable Battle

By | January 4th, 2013|Licensing, Preparedness|

Healthcare-associated infections are a critical public health challenge in Arizona and in the US. Healthcare associated infections (HAIs) are acquired during healthcare treatment and can be devastating and even deadly- and they’re largely preventable. You may have seen the article in last week's Republic about dirty needles and their link to transmission of viruses and drug-resistant superbugs. The article [...]

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