Arizona Department of Health Services—Department failed to investigate or timely investigate some long-term care facility complaints, did not comply with some conflict-of-interest requirements, and has some gaps in 4 IT security areas

The Arizona Department of Health Services (Department) provides and coordinates public health services and programs for the State. Some of the Department’s key responsibilities include regulating some health-related occupations, such as emergency medical care technicians; regulating childcare and healthcare facilities; responding to public health emergencies; and helping control public health epidemics. The Department failed to investigate, or timely investigate or resolve, some long-term care facility complaints and self-reports. In addition, it did not comply with some conflict-of-interest requirements. The Department is also responsible for safeguarding its information technology (IT) systems and data, and some gaps in its IT security processes resulted in an incident and additional IT security weaknesses. Finally, the Department is responsible for more than 30 boards, commissions, committees, councils, subcommittees, teams, and user or work groups that are subject to open meeting law requirements, and the Department did not consistently comply with open meeting law requirements for 3 meetings we reviewed.