One of the things I’m most proud of over the last 5 years has been the way we successfully overhauled our regulation licensed healthcare institutions in AZ.  Very few government entities could have accomplished such an all-encompassing regulatory reform effort that creates a new outcome-based system that will improve public health- while maintaining support from the vast majority of our Stakeholders.

Now we’re in the implementation phase. Our Licensing team has been attending association meetings and conducting and provider trainings for each of the new rule sets.  Licensing has also partnered with our Web and New Media team to make the most of our limited resources.  For example, our trainings have been “live-streamed” during the training so providers didn’t have to come all the way down to our building.  They’re also recorded so they can be viewed whenever the providers have time.   You can see some of the trainings our staff provided by visiting our implementation page and selecting provider trainings. There are still many more to come!

Our team is also improving some of the rule packages. For example, we’re still hard at work on improving rules for Adult Therapeutic and Behavioral Health Respite Homes. Since October 1^st, we’ve continued to meet with stakeholders and the most recent drafts of these articles should be posted this week. Providers can give feedback and comments about the rules through our online survey. We’ll also have the surveyors working with providers and giving us their own feedback on issues they find in the field or rules that could be improved.