In its last session, the Oregon Legislature passed the “Health Care Transformation Act” that is aimed at streamlining and reducing costs of providing health care to the low income and disabled folks who qualify for the Oregon Health Plan (OHP). 

The OHP uses state tax dollars and federal Medicaid dollars (also tax dollars) and provides services in physical health (doctors, hospitals, etc.), mental health, and dental health.  All of the treatment areas are facing issues of rising costs for services and decreasing funding.

In Douglas County, service providers have already been meeting for about two years to find ways to streamline services.  OHP services are provided here by Douglas County (mental health), our local physicians association (DCIPA)(physical health), Mercy Hospital, Umpqua Community Health Clinic, ADAPT (alcohol & drug addiction treatment), and Advantage Dental. We have had some successes and are eager for more.

The State’s idea is to push mental, physical and dental services into one pile that will be administered and operated by a consolidated Community Care Organization (CCO).  The vision is great:  save money by combining program administration, co-ordinate care around individuals to meet their needs at the least expensive level, and stress preventive care that will forestall expensive and ongoing degenerative illness.

As the county’s providers wade into this, we are gratified with the cooperation we are getting from our state partners in finding ways to overcome federal privacy regulations (HIPPA, and other regs around mental and substance abuse treatment) that prevent us from sharing patient data.  Being able to analyze how patients progress through the delivery system over time, is central to trying to identify areas where high usage and costs can be reduced.   From this, we can start the discussion about how to better configure services and design some pilot programs to test our assumptions.  Also, without baseline data, tracking whether new service configurations are actually working is not possible.

We have also asked our state partners to take a look at their reporting requirements with an eye to how necessary they are to getting beneficial outcomes.  Currently, in our Mental Health Department, therapists spend more time doing record keeping than counseling patients.

The service providers will be putting a lot of time into this initiative and I will keep you updated on our progress.

Susan always welcomes your questions or comments.  Please contact her by email at morgan@co.douglas.or.us; by mail at Douglas County Courthouse, Room 217, 1036 SE Douglas, Roseburg, 97470; or by phone at 440-4201.

The Ocean Policy Advisory Council (OPAC) was chartered by our Governor to advise that office and the Oregon Legislature on policies related to the near shore ocean (within 3 miles of the coast).

A subcommittee of OPAC is the Territorial Sea Plan Working Group (TSPWG).  The TSPWG is tasked with making recommendations around the siting of wave energy generating installations. 

This effort has been ongoing for more than two years.  At a very high level, the activities have centered around two main areas:  establishing standards that would govern the permitting, construction, operation and decommissioning of structures that generate electricity; and second, trying to find areas of the nearshore that are suitable to site these structures and that have the least interference to currently existing ocean uses.

I have written in the past about the process that has been undertaken to identify uses out in the ocean.  Great effort has gone into collecting data about existing uses and to map them on a Google Earth platform.  Go to http://oregon.marinemap.org/help/  to take a look.

In the spring, the TSPWG held a series of public meetings in coastal communities to preview the results of the mapping project and seek input from folks about the maps.  A second series of meeting will be scheduled for this fall and will again seek comment on the progress of the ocean zoning program.

A meeting held last week involved coastal county and city governments, and land use planning staff that met to begin discussions around amending county and city land use plans to accommodate wave energy generating facilities once their infrastructure meets the coast line. 

Local planning jurisdictions will have a role to play in regulating how electricity is moved from the ocean (state jurisdiction) to the electrical transmission system on land.  At Douglas County Planning, we are looking at our ordinances to make sure that we can accommodate these facilities.  As the process develops, discussion around this will take place in public meetings that the Planning Department will organize and host, probably within the existing structure for citizen participation.

I will keep you posted.

Susan always welcomes your questions or comments.  Please contact her by email at morgan@co.douglas.or.us; by mail at Douglas County Courthouse, Room 217, 1036 SE Douglas, Roseburg, 97470; or by phone at 440-4201.