Today on Arizona Horizon, we're talking to Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego and exploring a diagnostic tool for delirium.

Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego will be the next chair of Climate Mayors, a community of nearly 350 mayors who have organized to help each other lead city responses to climate change across the nation. She also secured $15 million from the Federal government to be used on electric vehicle charging stations. Arizona has five other mayors in the organization. She says her priorities include supporting and defending federal funding for local climate action in the United States, and to see Phoenix "go beyond greenhouse gas reductions and continue to look at climate action, economic growth and improved public health."

Banner University Medical Center Phoenix is one of seven health care systems in the nation to be awarded a $100,000 grant by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement that will support the implementation of a new diagnostic tool used to detect delirium in patients. Banner Health’s tool, the Neurological Orientation and Verbal Response Assessment for Delirium (NOVAD), uses data from the electronic medical record to tell medical staff if a patient is at high risk for delirium, which is a serious change in mental abilities that results in confusion and lack of awareness. Arizona's older population often requires a higher, more specialized level of care during inpatient hospitalizations due to increased risks for complications in an acute care setting. Research shows that the prevalence of delirium in hospitalized patients is about 30%, but many cases are often missed or unconfirmed. If not diagnosed early, delirium has the potential to affect patients’ abilities to eat, swallow, and risk for infection, which may lead to increased length of stay and even mortality. Dr. Nimit Agarwal, director of the division of geriatric medicine, joins us to explain.

All this and more on Arizona Horizon!

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