Arizona Department of Health Services, Director’s Blog

Home Visiting: An Evidence-Based Best Practice

Home visiting programs are highly effective at coaching new parents to be better parents.  Home visiting is particularly effective in building skills needed to be an effective parent as well as providing support for breastfeeding, nutrition, child development, fussy babies, oral health, and access to […]

By | December 26th, 2013|Prevention|Comments Off on Home Visiting: An Evidence-Based Best Practice

Publishing Our Accreditation Success

As soon as the health department accreditation movement started in early 2010 we quickly recognized that statewide public health accreditation could substantially help us with our goal of achieving improvements in public health outcomes in AZ.  Our first task was to scope out the resources we’d need to achieve statewide accreditation and then tap into some funds to make it happen.   

When […]

By | December 24th, 2013|General|1 Comment

Tweaking the EMS Cost Curve

A couple of years ago I had our folks in the Bureau of EMS and Trauma System write a guidance document on what we believe is appropriate to include in ambulance contracts.   We noticed that these contracts were getting very complicated and included a whole lot of stuff that was […]

By | December 20th, 2013|Preparedness|Comments Off on Tweaking the EMS Cost Curve

Rural Metro Bankruptcy Confirmed by Court (but not yet effective)

We received Rural Metro’s bankruptcy documents this week.  The Delaware bankruptcy court confirmed the company’s reorganization- including the business plan and capital structure.  The plan states that the company will be continuing all material contracts in AZ- which is good.  They’ll officially emerge from Chapter 11 once its reorganization […]

By | December 19th, 2013|Preparedness|Comments Off on Rural Metro Bankruptcy Confirmed by Court (but not yet effective)

Arizona Public Health Association gets National Recognition

Congratulations to Arizona Public Health Association (AzPHA) for gaining national recognition for its work- snagging the 2013 National Affiliate of the Year Award from the American Public Health Association.

For 85 years, AzPHA has helped shape public health in Arizona working to create smoke-free environments and access to healthcare.  In […]

By | December 18th, 2013|General|Comments Off on Arizona Public Health Association gets National Recognition