On November 18, Dean Richardson testified in Salem before the House Business & Labor Subcommittee for Workforce Development about the critical need to support and fund health care education. His testimony focused on improving outreach to undergraduate and high school students to encourage them to enter – and appropriately prepare for – health care careers, on reducing student indebtedness, and on retaining more physicians for Oregon by expanding and regionalizing Graduate Medical Education (GME) capacity. 

Dean Richardson highlighted the historic opportunity to expand support for health care education within the context of reform, noting that successful health care reform depends on a robust and well-trained workforce. He said that as part of reform, OHSU was interested in focusing on parallel curricular reforms and introducing new delivery models that support coordinated care in which providers work at the "top of their licenses." 

The day before, on November 17, John Saultz, MD, Chair of the Department of Family Medicine, testified before the House Health Committee on behalf of the Oregon Academy of Family Physicians about ways to more effectively deliver primary care to people. This testimony was formally included in OHSU's follow-up to the Workforce Development Subcommittee to reinforce the goal of transforming primary care. Dr. Saultz noted the extensive body of evidence showing robust primary care systems improve the health of the public and deliver care at a lower cost than other models.