Upgrading Oregon's Public Health System
FEATURED: 2018 Public Health Modernization Report to Legislative Fiscal Office
A modern public health system helps Oregon achieve the Triple Aim: better health and better care at a lower cost - by using proven approaches to address population health where people live, work, learn and play.
This report details how Oregon is using the 2017-19 legislative investment to modernize systems for communicable disease control, and describes how this work will be expanded with additional resources in 2019-21.
In order to support the health of all people in Oregon where they live, work, learn and play, we need to upgrade our public health system. Public health modernization ensures basic public protections critical to the health of all Oregonians and future generations – these include protection from communicable disease and environmental risks, health promotion, prevention of chronic diseases and injury, and responding to new health threats.
In July 2015, the Oregon legislature passed House Bill 3100; this bill implemented a new model for public health in Oregon based on recommendations made by the Task Force on the Future of Public Health Services in 2014. House Bill 3100 set forth a path to modernize Oregon’s public health system. The legislature showed its ongoing support for public health modernization during the 2017 session by passing House Bill 2310. House Bill 2310 describes how public health modernization will be implemented in the coming years and put in place new requirements for demonstrating progress toward meeting population health goals in Oregon.