In a story about an Optum-owned Eugene medical practice turning away some patients and Optum seeking to merge with another practice, Jane Zhu, M.D., M.P.P., M.S.H.P., says medical practice consolidation often leads to “higher commercial prices without any definitive positive effect on quality, and really unclear effects on access to care and workforce.”

Shivaani Kummar, M.D., moderated the first press conference at the annual meeting and was interviewed by Medscape about accelerated approval of cancer clinical trials. She says that having drugs approved on the basis of surrogate markers doesn't necessarily mean patients are getting ineffective therapies. For instance, if an agent just shrinks the tumor, it can sometimes still be "a huge clinical benefit because it can take the symptoms away.”

OHSU is partnering with St. Charles Health System, Central Oregon Community College and other local leaders to bring its Accelerated Bachelor in Nursing Program to Bend. Susan Bakewell Sachs, Ph.D., RN, says “the OHSU School of Nursing is proud to both help students from Central Oregon become nurses without having to leave home, and also to help the Bend area grow more of its own nurse leaders.”

OHSU is partnering with St. Charles Health System, Central Oregon Community College and other local leaders to bring its Accelerated Bachelor in Nursing Program to Bend. Susan Bakewell Sachs, Ph.D., RN, says “the OHSU School of Nursing is proud to both help students from Central Oregon become nurses without having to leave home, and also to help the Bend area grow more of its own nurse leaders.”

OHSU is partnering with St. Charles Health System, Central Oregon Community College and other local leaders to bring its Accelerated Bachelor in Nursing Program to Bend. Susan Bakewell Sachs, Ph.D., RN, says “the OHSU School of Nursing is proud to both help students from Central Oregon become nurses without having to leave home, and also to help the Bend area grow more of its own nurse leaders.”

Adventist Health Tillamook has purchased a telemedicine robot that will enable OHSU neonatal intensive care specialists to remotely offer real-time guidance for the care of infants who are hospitalized in Tillamook and need specialized care.

In a two-part series, Jon Snowden, Ph.D., and Paul Halverson, Dr.P.H., M.H.S.A., discuss the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health’s efforts to advance public health and educate the next generation of public health providers.

To prevent harming your vision, Ambar Faridi, M.D., recommends using special glasses that adhere to the ISO 12312-2 standard when viewing a solar eclipse.

The Cancer Letter publishes an in-depth video interview with Brian Druker, M.D., and Tom Sellers, Ph.D., discussing their new roles as CEO and director of the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute. On Sellers, Druker says: “To have somebody with his level of expertise who has already been a director of an NCI-designated cancer center, has been in a center where they had a dual CEO/cancer center director split — what an ideal opportunity for us. Here is somebody that I know, I like, is experienced — that checked all my boxes as far as somebody I’d want to have at my institution.”

As costs continue to outpace OHSU revenues, OHSU is launching an initiative to strategically realign its investments to ensure the region’s critically ill patients can access the highly specialized, complex care no other health system in Oregon can provide. While OHSU hopes to avoid layoffs, university executives say the initiative will require some hard choices and tradeoffs.