Many Eugene residents have begun questioning the accessibility of local health care due to the changing landscape of services.
Eugene’s health care landscape has struggled to provide patients with adequate access to clinics and providers since the closure of PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center University District in late 2023.
Over 200 community members convened at the Willamette Christian Center on Sept. 26 to hear a panel of health care and policy experts answer community-provided questions about the state of health care in Eugene, Lane County and Oregon.
Here’s what you missed from the citywide health care forum.
Oregon health care leaders take on community questions
Eight panelists made up the forum moderated by Jensina Hawkins, Churchill Area Neighbors vice-chair. The event was hosted by the Churchill Area Neighbors.
The panel included:
- Julie Fahey, speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives
- Nancy Nathanson, District 13 Oregon House representative
- Dr. James McGovern, PeaceHealth Oregon Network chief medical officer
- Dr. Philip Capp, Oregon Optum executive medical director
- Dr. Jeanne Savage, Trillium Community Health Plan chief medical officer
- Eve Gray, Lane County Health and Human Services director
- Dr. Nick Jones, Clear Health Direct Primary Care founder
- Deleesa Meashintubby, Volunteers In Medicine of Lane County executive director
McKenzie-Willamette to open emergency department
David Butler, CEO of the McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center (MWMC), surprised forum attendees with an announcement that the hospital plans to establish a new satellite emergency department to serve west and south Eugene.
Butler said the facility is expected to provide a 12-bed, 24-hour, seven-days-a-week full-service emergency department on the corridor of W. Sixth and Seventh Avenues in Eugene. The property has not been purchased yet, but Butler said 20,000 cars pass the location every day and that the site will help improve emergency room access in Eugene.
“We feel that we have two really good hospitals in this community," Butler said. "Unfortunately, they’re both in Springfield and even though it doesn’t take you an hour to get across town, still, it’s a disadvantage to have to drive all the way over to McKenzie or Riverbend to get health care."
PeaceHealth to open in-patient rehab facility
Along with MWMC’s surprise announcement came news from other providers, such as PeaceHealth Oregon Network Chief Medical Officer Dr. James McGovern. He shared PeaceHealth’s plans to open a 42-bed in-patient rehab facility in Eugene.
“I’m thrilled that McKenzie is opening an emergency department,” McGovern said of MWMC’s emergency department announcement. “It frees up our capital to open an in-patient rehab facility that will have more beds, bringing traumatic brain injury to Eugene — something that doesn’t exist in the Northwest. You have to leave the region to get that.”
Also on PeaceHealth’s list of projects is a proposal to establish a primary care residency in the area.
“If we started the process today, the first resident would come out five years from now, but the time to plant the tree is now, so we are looking at a residency program,” McGovern said. “Anesthesia, those types of residency programs, psychiatry, are possibilities, but you have to start with primary care, so a decade from now, that’s a long time, but it’ll come fast; we may have multiple residency programs in town.”
He said he didn’t see PeaceHealth establishing a medical school in the community due to how “incredibly ambitious” of a task it would be but that he welcomes partnerships with other coalitions and public leadership to be part of those conversations.
Optum to launch new urgent care
Optum has also been questioned recently. Optum, a national health care corporation under parent company UnitedHealth, purchased Oregon Medical Group in 2020. Since then, many physicians have left the company, leaving many patients without a PCP.
Oregon Optum Executive Medical Director Dr. Philip Capp said he was excited to hear MCMW’s announcement, noting how increased access to health care supports the whole community.
“We have to create new access points and we’ll be launching our new urgent care to try to help with some of the access pressures in the first part of the year,” Capp said. “In addition to needing more facility access, we need more access to services that stop a little bit short of hospital-level services because of the cost there so that’s an investment that Optum is making in this community. In January, we’ll turn on our own version of a free-standing urgent care facility that’s just short of an emergency department.”
He said the facility won’t be able to assist with penetrating trauma, gunshot wounds, acute stroke or heart attacks, but “pretty much anything short of that” could be serviced there. Capp said new facilities add to the array of services available in the community and also help support keeping care affordable.
Lane County opens new clinics
Community Health Centers of Lane County (CHCLC) also had good news to share during the forum.
Lane County Health and Human Services Director Eve Gray highlighted the opening of two new CHCLC clinics this fall, one of which had a ribbon cutting earlier that week. That facility is a rapid-access clinic with four providers serving about 320 patients a week in west Eugene at 3321 W. 11th Ave.
The next clinic expected to open before the end of the year is planned to be located in Cottage Grove at the Lane Community College campus so care facilities can be partnered with teaching programs. Gray said the Cottage Grove facility is planned to provide dental services.
“We also are opening our first full-service dental clinic. That will be in Cottage Grove so we are working on recruiting for our dental director to get into that space because it’s not just physical health care that we don’t have enough of,” Gray said. “Particularly if you have Medicaid and you need to see a dentist, it’s really hard.”
Proposed legislation promises health care improvements in Oregon
While much of the forum revolved around Eugene-specific issues, the two state legislators on the panel highlighted their work addressing health care needs at the state level.
Rep. Julie Fahey, D-Eugene, the sitting speaker of the House, pointed to the Oregon Health Plan, Oregon's Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program, which is currently used by more than 1.4 million Oregonians. She said OHP is up for renewed funding this upcoming legislative session, which begins in January 2025.
According to recent data from the Oregon Health Authority, an estimated 97% of Oregonians have health coverage, the highest recorded insured rate in state history. OHA claims OHP contributes to that coverage record.
"It's very important that we support that program and that we make sure it's successful," Fahey said.
Rep. Nancy Nathanson, D-Eugene, outlined three bills she will be bringing to the 2025 legislative session:
- A bill to prohibit noncompete agreements and contracts for staff physicians that bar physicians from switching employment to another medical provider in the same town or county. Nathanson said that by removing that noncompete agreement, physicians would be able to remain in the town they serve and wouldn't force providers to leave town just because they leave their current job.
- A bill to raise the staff-to-student ratio for nursing school, which is currently eight nursing students per class. Nathanson said slightly increasing the ratio will result in more nurses becoming certified and entering the workforce.
- A bill to define urgent care clinics and require registration that would ensure a basic standard of services and care. With a lack of consistency currently, Nathanson said any given urgent care may or may not have X-ray services, have doctors, or take Medicaid insurance, for example.
"I am working with congressional offices to find ways for state and federal collaboration to crack down on anticompetitive business practices, keep community pharmacies open, ensure prescription drugs are accessible and affordable locally and put patient care before profits," Nathanson said.
Questions, answers at Eugene health care forum
Emcee Hawkins said over 60 questions were submitted to the forum beforehand and that even more questions came in that day and during the event. Despite having dozens of questions, the forum only had time to address eight of them.
Those eight questions broached a wide range of topics. Community members asked questions such as:
- "Is there an influx of patients that is adding to the wait times for PCPs or is it just a shortage of providers?"
- "Is there a way to bring a hospital, or at least an emergency room, to Eugene?"
- "What caused the exodus of physicians from Oregon Medical Group, creating an acute shortage of physicians in our region?"
Capp touched on scenarios where primary care providers have panels of patients too large for one doctor to reasonably manage, especially with the health care workforce declining. Even with more facilities opening, he said those new spaces don’t “solve the fact that there’s still not enough providers for people that need to be part of a primary care panel.”
“Here is the difficult news: That is not getting any better. In 2030, we will be 35,000 primary care physicians short in this country,” Capp said. “We are not training enough, we are not sending enough folks to medical school, we are not training enough people out of residency to get through that shortage.”
Clear Health Direct Primary Care Founder Dr. Nick Jones said the ways folks access and receive health care will shift as the system changes to try and fill in service gaps and meet provider and patient needs. What was a provider-led space is now transitioning to a “decentralized” model, and Jones said these changes are here to stay once implemented.
“We live now in an increasingly decentralized world. We’ve all been experiencing that trend as citizens and as consumers and that trend has not yet come to health care but that decentralization is coming,” Jones said.
“The future of health care is not based around a provider in a clinic — it’s based around a patient and a family in their home. You have had the health care experience, as I have had, of being in orbit around a health care provider and their team when the future is putting the care system in orbit around you and that is going to take a minute.”
How to get involved with health care in Lane County
The big picture of the state of health care in Lane County came into focus at the forum. Outside the walls of the Willamette Christian Center, the work to improve access to primary care continues.
Trillium Community Health Plan Chief Medical Officer Dr. Jeanne Savage said part of finding solutions to these health care concerns includes getting involved and changing expectations about what care teams can look like as the health care system changes.
“If you don’t like the system, please get involved and work to fix it, and when we think about solutions, let’s think about local, short term, big term, long term and also of what we can continue to do and work with our legislators at a national level,” Savage said.
Volunteers In Medicine of Lane County Executive Director Deleesa Meashintubby said the evening’s conversation was a good start and encouraged attendees to take action now to support the work being done to improve community health and care access.
“ It might not cure the whole issue, but it’s a start,” Meashintubby said. “The best thing about it: if you take one step, then to take the second step will be a whole lot easier, so let’s get going.”
Hannarose McGuinness is The Register-Guard’s growth and development reporter. Contact her at hmcguinness@registerguard.com
Miranda Cyr contributed to this coverage. She reports on education for The Register-Guard. You can contact her at mcyr@registerguard.com or find her on Twitter @mirandabcyr
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: New clinics, rehab facility among proposals to address health care gaps around Eugene
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