The Oregon Medical Association Annual Conference 2024
Meghan and I were lucky enough to be sponsors and attendees at The Oregon Medical Association (OMA) Annual Conference this past weekend. The theme? Medicine Now: Tides of Change.
And as anyone working in any capacity of healthcare or medicine might understand, it’s a rapidly changing world, one filled with a myriad of challenges as well as an incredible number of new opportunities to ensure that people have access to the care that they deserve in order to live happier, healthier lives.
The event, hosted in West Linn, was filled with hundreds of medical professionals from every corner of Oregon, “delved into the transformative currents shaping medicine” in an effort to “navigate the ever-changing tides of healthcare delivery, innovation, and patient care.”
Here’s what we learned.
This is OMA’s 150th Year In Existence
That’s right. This year, the Oregon Medical Association is celebrating its Sesquicentennial, meaning that since 1874 — just 15 years after Oregon’s official statehood — the organization has brought together physicians, physician assistants, and medical in an effort to not only create community among medical professionals, but also advocate for state and federal policies designed to improve access to quality patient care and reduce administrative burdens on medical professionals.
The Oregon Medical Association consists of 7,800 members, and is governed by a 60+ member Board of Trustees. OMA meets annually in order to discuss the industry’s most pressing local, state, and national healthcare-related issues.
Like Many Other Industries, the Oregon Medical Association AI Is an Important Topic
The discussion around artificial intelligence is unavoidable, and that’s certainly the case when it comes to the medical world.
In a profession where there seems to be a near-endless stream of data, how can healthcare leaders potentially harness the power of artificial intelligence to safely, privately, and ethically use that information to decrease administrative burdens, forge breakthroughs in the realms of diagnosis and treatment, and create a pathway for more personalized, patient-centric care?
Of course, the discussion must continue. What are the potential effects of automation on the healthcare workforce? How can we ensure the highest standards of safety and the highest quality of data to deliver better outcomes? And, of course, how can we ensure that AI and machine learning technologies are assistive and not disruptive to the person-to-person interactions that are central to providing great care?
How Do We Deliver Much-Needed Care To Underserved Communities?
The need for care does not discriminate across economic, cultural, or geographic lines, but often the accessibility and delivery of care poses more difficulty for healthcare providers.
Much of this topic was discussed with keynote speaker Dr. Sejal Hathi, MD, MBA, during a dynamic Q&A session where the entire OMA community was invited to discuss the issues directly impacting their work and patients.
Dr. Hathi, who recently became Director of the Oregon Health Authority, is a board-certified attending physician who formerly held joint faculty appointments as an assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, served in the Biden-Harris Administration for two years as the White House’s Senior Policy Advisor for Public Health, and was New Jersey’s deputy health commissioner for public health services and its designated state health officer.
The Oregon Health Authority hosted seven listening sessions across the state in 2024 in an effort to engage local communities, public health representatives, and providers in priority-based discussions on topics like emergency and transitional housing, the crisis of overdoses across the state, and the inequities in access to care along racial and geographic lines.
Though much of the media spotlight focuses on issues in Oregon’s larger urban areas, the state’s rural areas often go underserved. Providers, organizations, and patients all need more support in order to meet the basic health needs of these communities so that they can thrive.
The state’s coverage statistics are impressive. Nearly 4 million people — about 94% of residents — have insurance coverage. However, despite that high level of coverage, accessibility to even basic care poses a challenge.
It will take a team effort across urban and rural communities, professional organizations, and state and federal governments in order to bridge the gap between coverage and access.
The Oregon Medical Association Supports The Future of Medical Professionals
“The future of medicine is team-based,” said Pat Kenney-Moore, EdD, PA-C, Physician Associate of the Year award winner.
Anyone who has needed any sort of medical care can see that an entire ecosystem of professions are necessary in order to deliver great care while maintaining strong patient relationships and orderly operational systems.
Physicians, physician assistants, nurses, administrators, practice managers and many more are absolutely essential in creating and maintaining healthy, thriving communities.
But the world of healthcare professionals is facing a looming staffing crisis. An aging generation of professionals are readying for retirement with too few to replace them. Physicians and other healthcare professionals aren’t given the time they need to connect with patients and address their problems on a personalized basis.
Hospital systems and local clinics are struggling to recruit and maintain medical professionals in rural areas. Student debt, high stress, burnout, decreasing reimbursement rates, corporate consolidation, growing misinformation about health and medicine — all of these factors pose challenges for the medical world.
In their Annual Meeting, the members of the Oregon Medical came together to directly address how they can use their influence as an organization to attract new talent to the profession, address critical issues like burnout and student debt, and incentivize professionals in seeing the importance of serving rural and underserved communities.
OMA has embraced Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, despite the political weaponization that surrounds it. Their goal is to ensure that physicians, medical professionals, patients, and their communities are better represented economically, culturally, and geographically — it’s an essential stance when it comes to the consideration, delivery, and representation of care across increasingly diverse populations.
Formada Thanks the OMA
This is just a brief overview of what we experienced at the Oregon Medical Association’s Annual Meeting. There’s so much more that I could share because there’s simply so much more happening in the world of medicine, in Oregon and across the country and around the world.
It is comforting to be in an environment where there are so many dedicated professionals who genuinely care about the work they do and how it impacts the lives of those they serve. And it’s clear that they want to do so much more and make such a bigger difference than they already are.
So, thanks to everyone at the OMA for inviting us. And a very special thanks to the OMA’s Director of Marketing, Jayme Barnes and their Vice President of Practice Advocacy, Joy Conklin. We’re grateful to have been sponsors and attendees of the event, and look forward to seeing the impact they’ll surely continue to have on Oregonians in the years to come.