The new guy
I see that the new director of the Oregon state health department, James Schroeder, is on the job as of today. Unlike his predecessor, he actually knows something about public health care and is not an all-purpose bureaucrat.
Schroeder, a primary care clinician who last served as chief executive officer at the state’s largest coordinated care organization, Health Share of Oregon, acknowledged the Oregon health care system’s current “acute” challenge: hospitals jammed with respiratory virus patients. And many patients can’t be discharged because they lack housing, mental health treatment or long-term care....
“Too many people find themselves on the street, in jail or the hospital because they’re in crisis and can’t find the behavioral health treatment they need,” he said. “Too many people die preventable deaths from fentanyl, methamphetamine and other dangerous substances. Hundreds of thousands of people who gained health coverage in recent years risk returning to a time when small changes in income can bounce working families on and off the Oregon Health Plan (OHP), especially as federal pandemic coverage and funding winds down.”
Schroeder, who was appointed by Gov. Tina Kotek, serves as a lieutenant colonel in the Oregon Air National Guard and is the commander of the Group Medical Unit on the Portland Air Base....
Schroeder described himself as “a community health primary care clinician with deep roots in advocating for social justice and health equity.” Those roots included providing clinical care to rural, uninsured, Spanish-speaking patients “who frequently drove more than 50 miles each way to see me so they could talk to someone who spoke their language.”...
Schroeder has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Colorado and a master’s degree from the University of Nebraska. Additionally, he has completed the Community Health Leadership program at the University of Washington, and Kaiser’s Executive Leadership Program at Harvard Business School.
It would be hard not to improve the management of that office over what we've had for the last several years under Killer Kate. But I wish the guy well and hope for some really big steps forward.
I hope he’s a believer in less talk and more doing
ReplyDeleteSo far, so good. Entering with the right attitude, alright. We'll see....
ReplyDeleteHe won't last. After years in high level, but non mgmt government, I have learned that when it comes to programs or departments, the only thing that matters is perception and getting the best perception with the least amount of work. Forget about them actually wanting to change or improve things for Oregonians. That is too much work and often they are unqualified for it anyway. The competent non-management staff either get their ideas stolen and corrupted or get pushed out as managers don't want to be made to look as stupid as they really are.
ReplyDeleteHe'll be wise to let Kohoutek take credit for the wins, and he himself take the hit for the failures. In the meantime, I'm glad the dirigible has departed for Santa Fe.
DeleteSounds like he had a pretty good grasp on the drug addiction crisis and why enforcement doesn't work without long-term treatment, but will the state give up it's virtue signal projects to fund it? And being a man of science hopefully he can explain to all the mask-maniacs that a mask does almost nothing against viruses, but not holding my breath (pun intended) since the medical industrial is being held hostage by big pharma. https://centerforneurologyandspine.com/do-masks-work-see-the-review-of-over-150-studies-below/
ReplyDeleteDon't you mean big mask rather than big pharma? They are the ones funding the jewish space lasers, or so I have heard.
Delete"Almost nothing," says who, you? And almost nothing > nothing. The real maniacs get their "science" from Tucker Carlson.
ReplyDeleteI hear that my chain link fence won’t keep the gnats out of my back yard
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