Member Profile

Oregon Health & Science University

Background

In 1887, the inaugural class of the University of Oregon Medical School met in the school's lone building — a two-room converted grocery store at 23rd and Marshall streets in northwest Portland. The small frame building had been purchased with a $1,000 loan from the First National Bank of Portland on a joint note signed by the school's eight faculty members. It housed a lecture room on the ground floor and a dissecting room above. Cadavers were hauled up through a trapdoor in the floor with a block and tackle.

Today, that school's direct descendant, the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine, is part of a billion dollar academic health complex. In addition OHSU includes the Schools of Dentistry, Nursing and Science and Engineering; OHSU Hospital and Doernbecher Children's Hospital; more than 150 primary and specialty clinics; multiple research institutes; and several community service programs. Its central campus sits on more than 100 wooded acres atop Marquam Hill, overlooking downtown Portland.

The medical student population has grown over the last century from 18 (all male) to more than 400 (55 percent female). At the beginning, practicing physicians lectured for little or no money; there were no full-time instructors. From eight part-time instructors in 1887, the school today has about 1250 full-time faculty, many internationally recognized for many life-enhancing innovations in biomedical research, diagnostic techniques and treatments. More than 2,000 practicing clinicians also serve as volunteer faculty members.

Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) is the state's only health and research university. OHSU's fundamental purpose is to improve the well-being of people in Oregon and beyond. As part of its multifaceted public mission, OHSU strives for excellence in scholarship, research, clinical practice and community service. With integrity, compassion and leadership, OHSU strives to:

• Educate tomorrow's health and high-technology professionals, scientists, environmental engineers and managers for leadership in their fields.

• Provide high-quality health care emphasizing the development and dissemination of new knowledge and cutting-edge technology.

• Explore new basic and applied research frontiers in health and biomedical sciences, environmental engineering, computation, and information technology.

• Improve access to health care and education through community service and outreach to Oregon's underserved populations. OHSU is not a state agency. As a nonprofit public corporation overseen by a governor-appointed board, OHSU is both a business and service partner of the state of Oregon. It must meet its public obligation to serve the needs of the state's citizens as well as conduct a progressive, viable business in a competitive marketplace. OHSU brings countless benefits to the citizens of our region, including:

• Intellectual capital, building on today's knowledge for tomorrow's world.

• The most comprehensive health care services in Oregon, including many innovative clinical care and diagnostic services only offered at OHSU.

• Billions of dollars and thousands of jobs to stimulate Oregon's economy.

• Dozens of coordinated outreach programs serving people statewide.

Healing
With two hospitals and numerous primary care and specialty practices, OHSU provides a full spectrum of adult and pediatric care, from routine services to highly sophisticated specialty treatments. Many of these services are not available anywhere else in the state or region. OHSU was the first hospital in the state to perform heart, kidney, liver, lung and pancreas transplants, and it is the only site in Oregon providing both pediatric and adult bone marrow and lung transplants. OHSU is a designated Level 1 Trauma Center and has been recognized as one of the premier trauma centers in the United States.

Teaching
OHSU includes the schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing, and science and engineering, and it maintains educational partnerships with Oregon State University, Portland State University and the Oregon Institute of Technology. OHSU awards the state's only doctoral degrees in dentistry, medicine and nursing; houses many specialized research programs; and educates postdoctoral, doctoral, master's-level, undergraduate and certificate students in a broad range of health, science, computer science and engineering disciplines.

Discovery
More than 1,500 OHSU scientists are working on approximately 3,200 basic and applied research projects. They have introduced 610 new technologies since 1985, resulting in nearly $10 million in licensing revenues. The remarkable range of their work results in a new innovation or discovery, on average, every three to four days.

OHSU's competitive research awards have nearly quadrupled during the last decade, growing to more than $260 million in 2004. Nearly $223 million comes from federal agencies. Overall, more than 95 percent, or $247 million of the total comes from out-of-state sources, providing a much-needed boost to Oregon's economy.

Building a healthy future
OHSU is now constructing a patient care facility and a biomedical research building on its Marquam Hill Campus, and has entered a unique partnership with government agencies and private developers to transform vacant land along the west bank of the Willamette River into a vibrant, mixed-use area that will include OHSU clinical, educational, research and administrative facilities. These projects are part of a comprehensive strategy that is designed to stimulate intellectual energy, provide state-of-the-art health care and anchor a thriving biosciences industry for people in Oregon and beyond.

Current Projects

Like many AAMC members, OHSU has several interesting and challenging projects on the table or underway. Below is a list of some of those projects.

Enterprise Epic Electronic Health Record
Building on the foundation of Epic Ambulatory, OHSU is starting the project to implement a single, integrated healthcare information system to achieve our institution's goals of patient-centered care, safety and quality, and operational effectiveness.

Grant Pre-Award
Preparing for February's planned implementation of electronic submissions for Federal grants, OHSU is implementing software from InfoEd International.

Capital Construction and Activation
OHSU has embarked upon significant construction projects, greatly expanding clinical, academic, and research space. These projects have considerable impact on ITG: designing a state-of-the-art infrastructure (wired and wireless) and bringing all the new services online.

CTSA
OHSU has received one of the first waves of clinical and translational science awards, with informatics support as a key to successful research. We are now developing the organizational plans that will take our vision to reality, including significantly streamlined approaches for clinical researchers to generate and access needed data.

Enterprise Management Decision Support
With a high level of automation supporting OHSU's operational and transactional needs, we find our systems have a wealth of data that is hard to transform into actionable information and knowledge. OHSU is embarking upon a multi-year strategy to implement best practice data warehousing and business intelligence tools to enable data-driven decision making.