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April 18, 2007 , Lake Oswego , Ore. - Oregon ’s hospitals welcomed the positive reaction to House Bill 3290 this week with a unanimous vote from the House Health Care Committee and support from the committee chair, Representative Mitch Greenlick (D-Portland). The bill now moves to the Senate where it’s also sponsored by Senator Laurie Monnes Anderson (D-Gresham) who chairs the Senate Health Policy and Public Affairs Committee.
This action reflects an immense amount of work by Ellen Lowe, OAHHS community advocate and Kevin Earls , head of the government relations team, who together did a great job throughout the process on the House side, said Andy Davidson, OAHHS president and CEO. OAHHS also appreciates the special efforts and support of many hospital members on this bill.
OAHHS has received very positive comments from the legislative assembly for its proactive stance on this issue and for “doing well by doing good.” Davidson says the bumper sticker for this legislation reads, “Community Benefit – Measure It, Report It and Celebrate It!”
Davidson said the work and research around this legislation has re-affirmed the importance and commitment of Oregon ’s hospitals to increase public accountability and demonstrate how health care facilities meet their community obligations. “We’ve created a comprehensive, transparent and accountable system that will provide every community with full access to information on their hospital’s contributions. We want policy makers to be able to make the kinds of important decisions affecting the state’s health care in the context of complete information. That’s hard to do without uniform community benefit reporting. This legislation provides exactly that kind of clear, across-the-board picture of how much each hospital is actually contributing to meet local health care needs,” Davidson said.
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