press releases

May 8, 2013 – Oregon Health Network, a wholly owned subsidiary of OCHIN whose mission is to improve the quality, access, and delivery of health care to all Oregonians, recently announced that Kaiser Permanente Northwest (KPNW) has become its newest member. OHN is Oregon’s health information highway, providing information connectivity to the entire health care continuum in Oregon. OHN uses FCC grant funds to provide a widely available, low-cost, integrated, and monitored health care network that allows users to benefit from increased health information exchange, telehealth, and conference services throughout the state of Oregon. Read More >>

May 7, 2013 - The Oregon Immunization Program today released the 2013 rates of Oregon kindergartners who have cited non-medical (religious) exemption from one or more required vaccines, showing the rate of exemptions has increased to an all-time high of 6.4 percent. National data showed that in 2012, Oregon had the highest rate non-medical exemptions from immunizations for kindergartners. Read More >>

  May 6, 2013 -- Oregon has set the health policy world abuzz once again. A just-published study in the New England Journal of Medicine about the 2008 expansion of the Oregon Health Plan via a lottery system has generated a flurry of discussion about how expanding Medicaid impacts people’s health. This discussion is hardly academic, as states across the country are in the midst of planning or debating whether to expand their Medicaid program in response to the Affordable Care Act. Read More >>

May 6, 2013 – Pregnant women are advised not to smoke during pregnancy because it can harm the baby's lungs and lead to wheezing and asthma, among other problems. If a woman absolutely can't kick the habit, taking vitamin C during pregnancy may improve her newborn's lung function and prevent wheezing in the first year of life, according to a study presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Washington, DC. Read More >>