About OHSU Health Care

Who we are

We are passionate and accomplished doctors, researchers and educators working together to provide innovative, world-class care.

As Oregon’s only academic health center, OHSU provides an extensive range of services, from everyday health care needs to complex, highly specialized therapies.

Our knowledge translates into cures and disease prevention. Our research sparks new treatments. Our educators teach tomorrow’s health care leaders. Our outreach programs improve community health.

Our hospitals, partners and other relationships

OHSU includes two hospitals (OHSU Hospital and OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital) and numerous medical practices that are located on Marquam Hill, at the Center for Health & Healing, at the South Waterfront and in several neighborhoods in the Portland metro area.

In addition, OHSU has affiliated with other health care partners across the state. Hillsboro Medical Center and Adventist Health Portland are part of the OHSU Health system, significantly expanding the Portland-area locations where Oregonians can connect with Oregon's only academic health center.

Outside of Portland, OHSU has a significant relationship with Columbia Memorial Hospital in Astoria.

Magnet designation

An American Nurses Credentialing Center badge that reads "Magnet Recognized."

OHSU is proud to be designated a Magnet hospital. Just 9 percent of U.S. health care organizations hold this designation from the American Nurses Credentialing Center. It is the highest recognition a nursing program can receive.

Our Magnet designation also celebrates OHSU as an organization that attracts highly qualified nurses, physicians and specialists, fosters collaboration across disciplines and improves patient care through high standards.

Magnet designation dates:

  • 2012-2016
  • 2017-2021
  • 2022-2026
  • OHSU is a regional resource for patients from Oregon, southwest Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alaska and northern California.
  • More than 34 percent of OHSU patients come from outside the Portland tricounty area.
  • Patients come to OHSU from every county in the state.
  • OHSU is one of two designated Level 1 Trauma Centers in the state, and played a pivotal role in the inception of the Oregon Trauma System.
  • The OHSU Knight Cancer Institute is the only cancer center between Sacramento and Seattle designated a Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute.
  • OHSU is the only place in Oregon where adults and children can receive bone-marrow transplants.
  • The OHSU Center for Women's Health is one of 20 national Centers of Excellence for women's health.
  • OHSU's Oregon Clinical and Translational Research Institute brings together medical researchers from every arena to share expertise, technologies and ideas. OHSU is conducting more than 700 clinical trials to bring new treatments and cures to patients sooner.
  • OHSU’s Casey Eye Institute is home to the nation’s first research-oriented children’s eye clinic, the Elks Children’s Eye Clinic, established in 1949.
  • The discovery of the anti-cancer medication Gleevec by OHSU Knight Cancer Institute CEO Brian Druker, M.D., has saved more than 1,000,000 lives.

Here's a detailed list of OHSU facts.

As the only academic health center in the state, Oregon Health & Science University is where personalized patient care is combined with the latest treatments and therapies to deliver you a quality of health care not available anywhere else in Oregon. Coming to OHSU for your health care means seeing doctors who are involved in developing new cures and new standards of care in Oregon and worldwide. 

Year after year, OHSU doctors, nurses and staff are recognized as the top health care professionals working at Oregon's best hospital. But awards aren’t what make us come to work every day. It’s working together to help people like you and your family.

An academic health center is more than a regular hospital.

An academic health center:

  • Provides patients and the community with health care for everyday needs and the most specialized services for complex diseases, illnesses and injuries

  • Offers unique care not available anywhere else in the region

  • Teaches generations of health care professionals with an eye on training the right mix of providers for tomorrow’s needs

  • Develops technology and carries out research that improves lives

Why choose an academic health center?

At OHSU, we believe knowledge comes from questioning the status quo, discovering more about disease and using that knowledge to improve the health of our community. Out of more than 100 academic health centers in the U.S., we are the only one in Oregon. Nearly a third of Oregon’s practicing physicians did all or part of their training at OHSU.

We bring teams of physicians, nurses, researchers, teachers, technologists and other experts together all in one setting to advance health care in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. It’s an approach called multidisciplinary care.

All these resources, knowledge and learning gleaned from all of us are all for one person: you.

What can an academic health center offer me?

  • Board-certified doctors in all major specialties, working side by side to provide all-encompassing care, 24/7

  • The latest discoveries in medicine sooner; many are made right here at OHSU

  • Opportunities to participate in clinical trials

  • Traveling clinics and telemedicine technology delivered to rural sites around the state

  • Doctors well-versed in the latest treatments, technologies and innovations to treat patients and educate doctors for the future