Kathy McCanna, Alan Oppenheim, and Connie Belden (from Licensing) and Kristy Benton (from Behavioral Health) recently jumped head-first into a new Arizona health-care initiative called No Place Like Home which is Arizona’s approach to the Partnership for Patients: Better Care, Lower Costs project. The project aims to prevent hospital-acquired conditions and hospital re-admissions. The name [...]
We recently held a series of focus groups and interviews to obtain input from persons with Serious Mental Illnesses (peers) and their family members regarding the integration of physical healthcare and behavioral healthcare services in partnership with St. Luke’s Health Initiative and AHCCCS, and several behavioral health peer-run organizations and peer and family members. The [...]
Our Assisted Living Licensing shop received a complaint about physical and verbal abuse of vulnerable adults in an assisted living facility in Casa Grande a couple of weeks ago. Surveyors Matthew Deise and Doris Laidlaw responded to the facility and interviewed several residents and caregivers at the home, who confirmed that some employees treat the residents [...]
There's a well-known quote attributed to Abe Lincoln that goes something like this: "Give me 6 hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first 4 sharpening the axe." Maybe somebody will someday quote me as saying: "Give us 20 months to transform the delivery of behavioral health and primary care services to address the [...]
Do you know someone who’s pregnant and needs help finding low-cost prenatal care? Someone looking for post-partum depression resources; help with breastfeeding; low-cost dental care; or the nearest WIC clinic? One great resource that can help is our Pregnancy & Breastfeeding Hotline. The Hotline (1-800-833-4642) is a statewide service funded by our Title V Maternal and [...]
By now you know all about our goal of improving integration of care for individuals with a serious mental illness. In looking more closely at this population, we noticed that about 50% of folks with a serious mental illness who are enrolled with Medicaid (AHCCCS) are also enrolled in Medicare… meaning that they’re “dual eligible.” [...]
You'll remember that ADHS and AHCCCS jointly applied for and received a $750K Planning Grant to explore integrating primary health care and behavioral health care- especially for folks with serious mental illnesses. Our teams have been very busy over the last couple of weeks getting the initiative underway. One of the concepts we're exploring is a specialty Regional [...]
Part of the authorizing statute for our tobacco prevention programs includes a requirement that we develop a bi-annual report of our progress and activities. Just two years ago, we reported that we were shifting to an “evidence-based” approach to our prevention activities. In other words- we shifted our intervention strategies to focus on approaches that have [...]
The center of gravity for the public health responses to the fires shifted South this week toward the new Monument fire. Early this week folks were allowed to go back to Springerville and Eagar, which meant that it was show-time for Licensing again. We sent a team of surveyors to re-open the licensed facilities that were evacuated last week. [...]
I’m sure you know that a few wildfires are still burning in AZ, including the massive Wallow fire. The Governor signed a Declaration of Emergency on Monday this week, releasing some state funds to help with the response efforts and opening the State Emergency Operations Center, which is coordinating and directing the state emergency response activities. You [...]
