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Health Director's Report January, 2016 • 1 officially took over as the President of the Health Director's Association at the State Health Director's Conference in January. I gave a short welcome speech which I've attached to this report. • Medicaid Reform and Cost settlement have had me spending a lot of time in Raleigh. In fact, one week I went to Raleigh 4 consecutive days. We are making progress on both and I know that this time will be beneficial not just to statewide public health, but also to Orange County. • This is budget season, so we are learning about budget submission requirements under new leadership at both the state and county level. More changes locally than at the state, but we always have a strong budget, so I'm not terribly worried. • Meredith and I attended a 1.5 day training on Facilitative Leadership sponsored by Blue Cross and Blue Shield foundation. It was a good refresher for both of us as we increasingly work with our communities to address the social determinants of health. • Work is finishing up on the Community Health Assessment. This work is the foundation for our BOH strategic planning process which will start in March. I've attached a more detailed outline of what to expect to this report. • 1 started teaching this semester. The first two classes have gone well. The only concern I have is that the class is 3 hours and after class I barely have a voice left. Apparently life as a politician is not in the cards for me! My voice couldn't take it. • Meredith and I are both fielding a lot of calls about naloxone. The state wants to expand access by making some changes to how naloxone can be distributed and a few counties who are dealing with spikes in opioid - related deaths want to quickly establish programs through their Health Departments. • Speaking of naloxone, we accepted the Innovation in Government award in December for the collaborative effort to dispense naloxone through training and partnerships with law enforcement. • Speaking of innovation, we have rolled out the third round of Innovation Grants for the Health Department. This year was spectacular with the most applications from the most first time applicants. We funded a diverse set of innovative ideas include one for which I'd like us to explore patent options. • I've been doing some strategic planning work with the Family Success Alliance (I don't know what it says about a person for whom strategic planning is one of their absolute favorite things to do.), and they are doing a nice job of settling into their roles while building the plane as they learn how to fly it. I'm super impressed with all involved. • We spent some time working with the state to correct a published report on the number of syphilis cases in Orange County. They are reporting more cases than we have. We think they