News

Every morning, we wake up in one of the most beautiful places on earth. And as much as we love the wide open spaces of Union County, living in Northeast Oregon also has challenges. One of which is access to health care.

Expanding the opportunities for quality health care to our patients has long been at the forefront of the vision of Grande Ronde Hospital. We continue to do this in several ways, but three in particular stand out.

First, the hospital’s ongoing recruitment process strives to bring the best physicians available to our rural home. The most recent additions to hospital medical staff—doctors Yangson, Singh, Reynoso and Yu—are all highly experienced and dedicated professionals. Wehave all beenimpressed by their warmth, dedication and enthusiasm.

But,weare also impressed with the effort and leadership that went into successfully promoting our hospital and our community to these new physicians, at a time when the odds are stacked against such an accomplishment.

Also, by expanding the Regional Medical Clinic, the hospital has not only created a wonderful tool for recruiting more health care providers, but also ensures that new patients will receive the health care they so desperately need. Again, this expansion took courageous planning at a time when so many rural hospitals and clinics struggle to maintain the status quo.

Most recently, Grande Ronde Hospital has become the lead player for the future of telemedicine in Oregon. Earlier this summer, hospital staff successfully demonstrated our remote telepresence capabilities to the Oregon Medical Board. This demonstration helped convince the board to adopt a temporary ruling to allow physicians to practice telemedicine across our state lines.

When the new rule becomes permanent in January 2009, not only will our patients and physicians benefit from this change, but so will the whole state of Oregon.

Our commitment is to expand local opportunities for rural health care with telemedicine through medical consults, specialty care, education opportunities and more. The hospital is already partnering with specialists from coast to coast to provide consultative services in cardiology, neurology, neonatology, dermatology, intensive care and much more.

At Grande Ronde Hospital, we see the future of rural medicine—and it’s as broad and rich as an Eastern Oregon sunrise.