House Bill 2697 Will Threaten Patients' Access to Care and Not Solve Oregon's Health Care Workforce Shortage

Hospital leaders from across the state delivered these and other key messages in written testimony to the House Committee on Behavioral Health and Health Care in a hearing on Feb. 27, which was invited testimony only, and again in a hearing on Feb. 28 that was open to the public. Click here to read the testimony. 

OAHHS and the hospital leaders who testified drove home the message that the bill takes what is dysfunctional and broken in the current nurse staffing law and replicates it so that it reaches what appears to be nearly the entire workforce. It does not even appear to consider that Oregon, like the rest of the country, is facing a workforce shortage. Oregon does not train enough nurses to meet current demands, which is why OAHHS is proposing a package of bills designed to rebuild the health care workforce, an effort that will require collaboration from the state, organized labor, and hospitals.