Overview
The Health Care Workforce Committee formed a Gender-Affirming Care (GAC) Provider Workgroup in October 2024, in response to letters from Oregon Health Policy Board's (OHPB) Health Equity Committee and Oregon Health Authority (OHA) Director Dr. Sejal Hathi. The letters represented critical issues identified by community members regarding inequities for Oregon's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Queer, Trans, Intersex, Asexual, and Two Spirit (LGBTQIA2S+) communities, and included recommendations to address those inequities. The letters identified a role for the Health Care Workforce Committee to establish a workgroup, which developed
a report and held its final meeting in April 2025.
Scope
The purpose of the Health Care Workforce Committee's Gender-Affirming Care Provider Workgroup, based on the OHA Director's request, was to:
- Advise OHA and OHPB on ways to improve training, hiring and retention of gender-affirming care providers, in partnership with OHPB's Health Equity Committee and with OHA's Gender-Affirming Care Workgroup.
- Launch conversations on this topic and report back to the OHA Director with preliminary recommendations by February 2025.
Membership
The workgroup had members with expertise in gender-affirming care workforce policy and strategy from the following OHA committees and workgroups:
- Health Care Workforce Committee
- Health Equity Committee
- House Bill 2235 Workgroup on behavioral health workforce
Report and Additional Materials
The workgroup developed a report that was reviewed and approved by the Health Care Workforce Committee and the Oregon Health Policy Board. This report details preliminary recommendations in ways to improve training, hiring and retention of gender-affirming care providers:
These additional materials were also developed by the workgroup to accompany the report:
Past Meetings
Meeting EventsGAC-ArchiveMeeting DocumentsAll Documents