OHSU PLANS FOR CUTS AS STATE REDUCES ITS SUPPORT FOR EDUCATION AND SERVICE PROGRAMS

Legislature reduces allocation used to purchase services from OHSU

• Budget Cuts Resulting from the Oregon Legislature's Reduction in Support for OHSU's Education and Service Programs



• Cuts affect biennial budgets for the fiscal years 2002 and 2003. Students already admitted to affected programs will be allowed to complete their degrees.



• Proposed savings by fiscal year 2003 total $5 million a year.

School of Nursing
Because of nationwide nursing shortages, OHSU intends to maintain and, where possible, increase its current number of nursing graduates. With less money available to educate these students, however, the university will reduce the number of locations where classes are offered. It will downsize but not close its program at the Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls, one of three regional Oregon University System institutions where OHSU has a nursing program. It also will eliminate its Rural Frontier Delivery Program, which uses distance education mechanisms to deliver programs to place-bound students in remote communities of eastern Oregon.

Instead of maintaining a full baccalaureate nursing program at OIT, OHSU will offer new students recruited from the Klamath Falls area the opportunity to obtain OHSU's undergraduate nursing curriculum through interactive video, online programs and shuttle arrangements from the OHSU program at Southern Oregon University. The clinical training will still occur in the Klamath Falls region. Students already admitted, however, will be allowed the normal length of time to complete the current program at OIT. In addition, OHSU will close its master's degree program at the OIT campus. Again, students already in the program will be allowed to complete it.

School of Dentistry
OHSU intends to maintain its current number of graduates in dentistry. Tuition for the D.M.D. program will increase 15 to 20 percent by the fall of 2002, putting the school's tuition in the middle among public dental schools nationwide. In addition, the school will increase its nonresident-to-resident ratio by approximately 15 percent. Finally, OHSU will close its baccalaureate-level dental hygiene program to focus its resources on graduate education. Oregon has several other dental hygiene programs, including two in the Portland area. Students already admitted will be able to complete their degrees at OHSU.

School of Medicine
The School of Medicine will achieve its budget goals through tuition adjustments ($20,000/year for residents; $30,000/year for nonresidents). Except for annual inflation-related tuition increases, students already enrolled will not pay the higher tuition. The school, which has educated some 40 percent of Oregon's physicians, attracts 2,500 applicants for 96-100 medical student openings each year. In the fall of 2002, it will begin admitting an additional 10 students annually and will increase its target percentage of nonresidents to 40 percent.

The Allied Health Programs that educate medical technologists and emergency medical technicians also will be affected. Rather than operate these baccalaureate programs independently, OHSU has developed a partnership with the Oregon Institute of Technology in order to continue them. On Oct. 1, OIT will assume fiscal and administrative responsibility for these programs, which will continue to be offered in the metropolitan area. The degrees will be awarded jointly by both institutions.

The statewide Area Health Education Centers Program is a partnership with communities designed to improve the education, training and distribution of health care professionals. There are five AHECs throughout the state. Budget reductions will occur primarily by eliminating OHSU's state funding support for the Columbia-Willamette AHEC. The university will continue the statewide effort but will focus on rural areas. In contrast to the other four AHECs, the Columbia-Willamette AHEC was not funded by the state in the 1999 legislative session. The university replaced this lost state funding, using reserves the AHEC program had accumulated, but the budget must now be brought into balance.

Child Development and Rehabilitation Center
This statewide program helps provide health care to Oregon's children with disabilities and special needs. Many of the children come from low-income families. Most, however, come because of resources at CDRC that aren't available elsewhere. Services provided by CDRC will have to be trimmed. Some 5,000 annual patient visits are expected to be affected. About half will be able to find support elsewhere. The CDRC orthopedic program will be closed.

OHSU Hospitals and Clinics
The OHSU Health Care System receives a small part of its funding from state dollars, primarily to assist with the costs incurred by the hospitals and clinics as Oregon's primary training resource of new physicians, and for OHSU's disproportionate share of low-income patients. The hospitals will achieve their budget goals through cost savings with an annual review to determine whether access to services will need to be reduced.