
No sooner had Oregon Health & Science University emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic than the university faced unprecedented financial challenges affecting health care systems nationwide, followed by a renewed surge of patients sickened by respiratory viruses that roared back this fall.
OHSU clinicians, scientists, staff and students in Oregon’s academic health center overcame one challenge after another in keeping their focus on the university’s mission to improve the health and wellbeing of people in Oregon and beyond. In 2022, they continued to deliver exceptional care for patients — again recognized by U.S. News & World Report as the best adult and children’s hospitals in Oregon — while also ramping up new investments in educating the next generation of health care workers and generating innovations to advance human health.

“Great people rise to meet formidable challenges,” said OHSU President Danny Jacobs, M.D., M.P.H., FACS. “Time and again, our members remained steadfast in treating Oregon’s sickest and most vulnerable patients, making important scientific discoveries and educating a new generation of health professionals — all while enduring a century’s worth of adversity in the span of just a few years.”
In the face of these challenges, OHSU demonstrated leadership across a broad swath of issues — from climate action to firearms injury prevention to developing a hair-raising simulator to train America’s next generation of neurosurgeons. In addition, the university is leading development of a new statewide Behavioral Health Coordination Center, continuing OHSU’s leadership role in coordinating information sharing among health care partners across the state in order to optimize limited resources and best serve patients.
Following is a sampling of OHSU’s innovations and accomplishments over the past year:
Respiratory illness response
OHSU started the year by adapting to a surge of illness from the omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Weekly forecasts from OHSU data scientist Peter Graven, Ph.D., helped in managing hospital capacity at OHSU and across Oregon heading into 2022. By the end of the year, beginning with a public health emergency declared by Gov. Kate Brown on Nov. 14, OHSU managed through a resurgence of influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, that hospitalized scores of people including children.
Throughout the year, OHSU clinicians and scientists implemented clinical innovations while shedding new light on the SARS-CoV-2 virus:
- New study reveals breakthrough infections increase immunity to COVID-19
- Booster dose and breakthrough infection provide similar COVID ‘super immunity,’ study finds
- COVID-19 shutdowns caused delays in melanoma diagnoses, study finds
- COVID-19 fattens up our body’s cells to fuel its viral takeover
- Global study finds COVID-19 vaccination can affect menstrual cycle
- To broaden long COVID care, OHSU prepares primary care providers
- New research helps explain how inflammation increases COVID-19 vulnerability
- Mental health struggles take toll on people suffering long COVID
- Pandemic drives use of telehealth for mental health care
- Study shows hemp compounds prevent coronavirus from entering human cells
Accomplishments
In August, the OHSU School of Medicine held its first regularly scheduled in-person White Coat ceremony since the pandemic, celebrating a diverse class of medical students entering this fall.
In addition, OHSU demonstrated statewide and national leadership in addressing an epidemic of illicit drug use that claimed 107,000 lives from overdoses nationwide in 2021, the last full year measured. In June, OHSU hosted a roundtable discussion for media to call attention to the danger to young people from fentanyl surging into the state. Over the past year, OHSU addiction medicine specialists raised alarm and called out shortcomings in access to treatment in Oregon and nationwide, precipitating action at the federal level. Further, OHSU leaders promoted widespread access to naloxone to save lives while expanding low-barrier access to treatment to every corner of Oregon through a virtual model.
Throughout the year, OHSU clinicians and scientists generated new discoveries while serving as a backstop for patients throughout the region for high-level trauma, the rarest types of disease and cutting-edge treatments available nowhere else in Oregon:
- New treatment for tremors: Cutting-edge brain surgery with no cutting
- OHSU expands fetal care program, in-utero treatments for complex pregnancies
- Pleasure-producing human clitoris has more than 10,000 nerve fibers
- OHSU scientists discover mechanism of hearing
- OHSU researchers sharpen estimate of true percentage of people with ADHD
- OHSU advancing first-of-its-kind strategy to overcome infertility
- One-time gene therapy injection could provide HIV treatment that may last a lifetime
- Hospital at Home: Amid hospital capacity crisis, OHSU offers an alternative
- New treatment strategy aims to stop rare liver cancer
- OHSU partners with semiconductor company to develop smartwatch that detects key mental health indicator
- OHSU expands, improves transgender health services
- OHSU second in the country to perform regenerative brain cell therapy procedure
- Blood test could reveal transition to cancer in people at risk
- OHSU welcomes first out-of-state OB/GYN resident to receive training in abortion care
- Breast cancer screening: Study shows rate of overdiagnosis not as high as previously reported
- OHSU Knight Cancer Institute applauds updated Biden administration ‘Cancer Moonshot’ initiative
- Study confirms the unique danger of postpartum breast cancers
- A better roadmap for beating a deadly leukemia
- Study raises red flags about corporatization of health care, OHSU investigator says
- OHSU researchers develop new imaging method to detect complications early in pregnancy
- Mpox (monkeypox): OHSU experts answer common questions
- New study reveals the effect of extended space flight on astronauts’ brains
- Teen cannabis abuse has increased 245% over 20 years, study finds
- Cannabis products demonstrate short-term reduction in chronic pain, little else
- Cannabis resource for health care providers, researchers launches
- Little evidence on how psilocybin therapy interacts with existing psychiatric treatments, review finds
- Dependence on Xanax, similar sedatives lead OHSU physicians to coin new diagnosis
- Helping more Native Americans become physicians to improve health care for all
- Study: Chronic conditions affect older Black, white patients differently
- Review reports improved transparency in antidepressant drug trials
Community impact
As part of the broader community, in 2022 OHSU consistently advanced measures intended to improve public health beyond the walls of our hospitals and clinics.
Researchers advanced new avenues to prevent suicide among veterans, welcomed an innovative community-based program to reduce the cycle of violence affecting communities of color in the Portland area, and students continued a decade-long initiative to organize a Health Care Equity Fair providing checkups to people in need.
Indeed, OHSU clinicians and students reached across the state and around the globe in 2022:
- Amid opioid epidemic, training helps dentists safely manage patient pain
- OHSU residency programs at local hospitals catalyze community outreach
- Nine organizations receive OHSU Knight Cancer Institute funding to address local cancer-related needs
- Partnership among coastal hospitals, OHSU receives federal funding
- OHSU School of Nursing Ashland campus opens state-of-the-art facility
- Community-based nurses meet underserved patients where they’re at
- OHSU Street Nursing Team growing to better serve Southern Oregon’s unhoused
- OHSU Northwest Native American Center of Excellence project receives federal funding
- Help for Ukraine: OHSU members collect donations, volunteer to assist
Accolades
As one physician-scientist aptly put it during the annual Research Week celebration in May, OHSU scientists and clinicians routinely “produce a lot of quality work, but there’s not a lot of fuss about it.” This down-to-earth quality is shared by many Oregonians, although it belies the fact that OHSU scientists’ and clinicians’ drive to improve human health puts them at the top of their field:
- OHSU Knight Cancer Institute tapped for participation in a national consortium to accelerate cancer drug discovery
- Vollum director earns national distinction for mentoring next generation of scientists
- OHSU center for pancreatic care receives $10 million gift to ‘save lives of pancreatic cancer patients and help their families’
- OHSU awarded nearly $4 million to advance early childhood development
- OHSU researchers ‘instrumental’ in studying newly FDA-approved treatment for a form of prostate cancer
- OHSU experts tapped for national Artificial Intelligence initiative
- OHSU physician-scientist awarded $1.5 million for research into how drugs work at molecular level
- OHSU earns top score in Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2022 Healthcare Equality Index
- OHSU biostatistician elected to National Academy of Medicine
- Two OHSU scholars named American Academy of Nursing fellows
- Prestigious award advances OHSU research on impact of drug use over generations
- OHSU investigators awarded $3 million for innovative, promising research
- With new microscope, scientists will explore how tiny molecules make cells work by organizing at right place, right time