Oregon
5 Things Oregon: CCO performance review, Nurses seeking affordable housing, Q&A on Latinx COVID testing – State of Reform
My title is Eli Kirshbaum and I’m a Senior Reporter/Editor right here at State of Reform. Emily is out on trip for the subsequent two weeks, so I’m stepping in to write down her newsletters whereas she’s gone. Please be at liberty to attain out to me when you have any questions or feedback throughout her day without work—I’d be pleased to attach!
1. Reviewing the progress of CCOs
Oregon Well being & Science College’s closing report on the efficiency of the state’s Coordinated Care Organizations will probably be launched on the finish of this yr, after they launched their interim report final fall. OHSU has discovered that CCOs have elevated per-person Medicaid dental visits by 2.2%, dedicated substantial funding to addressing the social determinants of well being, and extra.
OHSU Well being Economist Okay. John McConnell, PhD, leads the Middle for Well being Methods Effectiveness, the entity accountable OHSU’s CCO efficiency reviews. He supplied some feedback on CCOs’ efficiency with integrating behavioral and bodily well being care: “On the time of the report, progress on behavioral well being integration appeared to have slowed or stalled,” McConnell stated. “I imagine the state has labored to treatment that, however it could nonetheless be an space requiring larger funding, definition, and measurement by the state. ”
2. Q&A: UO professor discusses program that tripled Latinx COVID testing
College of Oregon Professor Leslie Leve and her colleagues not too long ago carried out an outreach program that efficiently elevated COVID testing amongst Latinx Oregonians. On this Q&A, Leve discusses why this system was so profitable and the way its outreach technique will be replicated in different areas of well being care.
The outreach—carried out between Feb. 1st, 2021, and Aug. thirty first, 2021—closely relied on neighborhood well being employees, or promotores, which Leve credit as as the primary driver of this system’s success. “The promotores have been bilingual and bicultural, they usually had established connections with members of the neighborhood. They knew the neighborhood they usually have been seen as trusted people. I don’t assume we’d have seen such a optimistic impact in our examine if people with out the native data and relationships had been doing the outreach.”
3. Oregon nurses in want of reasonably priced housing
Within the Metropolis of Bend—which had the 4th highest price of dwelling improve within the US between 2010 and 2020—much-needed nurses are saying their wages aren’t commensurate with ever-increasing housing prices. As Tiffany Simmons, an RN at St. Charles Well being’s emergency division, places it: “We’ve negotiated a value of dwelling improve, however it’s 3% and that’s not sufficient … We take care of folks on this neighborhood so there ought to be no excuse for us not to have the ability to dwell right here.”
St. Charles had round 600 job openings in June of final yr, and Simmons says the ability at the moment has a 20% emptiness fee for nurses. Oregon Nurses Affiliation Communications Supervisor Kevin Mealy says the answer is to create native reasonably priced housing choices particularly for nurses, citing a 2020 effort in Medford during which 2 hospitals constructed trailer parks for displaced well being care employees to dwell.
4. Oregon receives first fee of opioid settlement cash
Oregon obtained $25 million on July thirty first from the not too long ago resolved nationwide opioid epidemic lawsuit settlement towards a number of giant pharmaceutical corporations. This represents the primary of what’s going to be 18 funds totaling over $270 million going in direction of the state to fund substance abuse prevention initiatives.
Funds from the settlement will help naloxone distribution, prevention packages, syringe providers, and extra. Oregon’s new Opioid Settlement, Prevention, Therapy and Restoration Board will probably be liable for placing these funds to make use of strategically and expeditiously, based on Lawyer Normal Ellen Rosenblum.
5. Important well being care price will increase fueled by Rx prices
A brand new report from the Oregon Well being Authority reveals that well being care prices within the state rose 49% between 2013 and 2019, and that that is largely attributable to rising prescription drug prices. Throughout that interval, prescription drug prices rose 185% for Medicare sufferers, 93% for commercially insured Oregonians, and 79% for sufferers on Medicaid.
These numbers signify larger progress than another well being service class included within the report. “Oregon is taking daring steps to regulate the rising price of well being care,” the report stated. “Because the fourth state to ascertain a well being care price progress goal program, Oregon is starting to shine a lightweight on the important thing drivers of well being care prices and setting the stage to carry each the private and non-private markets accountable for holding price progress.”