OHSU IS STILL EMBRACING TELEHEALTH AND REMOTE WORK but faces economic and political headwinds. In November 2020, Danny Jacobs, then president of Oregon Health & Sciences University, told OB that 39% of OHSU’s workforce was working remotely, up from 4% a year before. Telemedicine appointments had increased by 800%. He predicted a 2% year-over-year workforce increase and said the shift to remote work was saving the institution money. In the years since that conversation, the institution has undergone a series of big changes. Jacobs announced his retirement in October 2024; the institution has contended with rising costs and last summer announced plans to lay off more than 500 staff to balance its budget. The Oregon Health Authority is also reviewing OHSU’s plans for a $1 billion merger with Legacy Health Systems. The state could approve the merger, announced in 2023, as early as this summer. Despite last year’s drop in headcount, OHSU is still one of the state’s largest employers, with 21,300 people on payroll, according to the latest numbers published by the health system. According to OHSU spokesperson Erik Robinson, as of January 2025, about 22% of all OHSU ambulatory visits are done via telemedicine, compared to 26% in November of 2021; prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine accounted for less than 2% of appointments in the health care system. About 25% of OHSU’s employees engage in some form of remote work, either hybrid or fully remote, with the number of fully remote employees “generally holding steady,” Robinson wrote in an email to OB. “In addition to supporting flexible work options to reinforce work-life integration and retain our valuable employees, we also have the practical consideration of limited parking and building space. Remote and hybrid work helps ensure that limited parking and building space is available for patients, employees and learners who must be on campus,” Robinson wrote. OHSU is also facing threats in the form of potential funding cuts from President Donald Trump, who at the beginning of February issued an executive order that would have placed an immediate block on all federal funding. That move endangered research at OHSU, which received $388 million in funds from the National Institutes of Health in 2024. Oregon attorney general Dan Rayfield joined AGs from 21 other states in suing to block the cuts, and in mid-February a federal judge did just that. That block remained in place by the time this issue went into production in late February, the pause had been extended, but the future of research funding was in question. “Research is a foundational pillar of what makes us an academic health center, and we must do all we can to protect it,” interim president Steve Stadum said in a February statement. MEYER MEMORIAL TRUST HAS MOVED INTO ITS NEW SPACE, embracing hybrid work and a community co-working model. In 2020, Meyer Memorial Trust’s then executive director Michelle J. DePass told OB she was looking forward to returning to the office in the foundation’s new building, situated at the intersection of North Tillamook and Vancouver streets in Portland. The foundation announced its purchase of the land in 2018; construction was completed in October 2020, when COVID protocols were still in place, preventing staff from reporting to work in the new space. According to executive director Toya Fick, who stepped into her role in September 2022, the organization’s 40 employees have since returned to the office on a hybrid model. “We have no plans to change,” Fick wrote in an emailed statement to OB. “Our office is open five days a week, and we ask that our team make it a priority to be in office Tuesday-Thursday. We find that the hybrid model provides our staff with the flexibility to balance their obligations to work and home. We are incredibly blessed to have a beautiful, modern building to work in, and I think that really does make a difference.” Fick also noted that the building includes a co-working space, which lends some office space to a grantee with a temporary need, as well as what the organization calls the Center for Great Purposes, which the organization shares with grantees for all types of meetings, convenings and celebrations. “Opening our doors to community is one way that we support ‘beyond the check,’ and we’ve had great response to that offering,” Fick wrote. Meyer Memorial Trust has in recent years announced changes to its strategic framework to use an “antiracist, feminist lens” in funding decisions and to emphasize not just equity but justice, with Fick telling OB in 2022, “Equity is like a level-101 college class. Justice is the doctorate level.” As this issue went into production, the second Trump administration made good on promises to cut DEI programs in the “…We also have the practical consideration of limited parking and building space. Remote and hybrid work helps ensure that limited parking and building space is available for patients, employees and learners who must be on campus.” — OHSU SPOKESPERSON ERIK ROBINSON 39
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