Nursing homes and other healthcare organizations in Oregon are receiving workforce reinforcements after Gov. Kate Brown (D) announced yesterday that the state has finalized a contract with medical staffing company Jogan Health Solutions to deploy as many as 500 healthcare personnel to such settings. Separately, the state also has contracted with AMN Healthcare for at least 60 additional nurse and clinical positions.
The moves are expected to particularly benefit areas in the central and southern regions, which have been hardest hit by the surge in the delta variant of COVID-19.
According to the governor’s press release, the healthcare teams will serve both skilled nursing facilities and hospitals. The Oregon Health Care Association told McKnight’s that assisted living communities are excluded from the assistance.
For affected facilities, however, “[t]his is a much-needed infusion of qualified medical personnel that can help us get through this critical time in the COVID-19 pandemic,” Oregon Health Authority Director Patrick Allen stated in the press release.
“These crisis teams will be completely re-deployable. We will be working with the regional resource hospitals and incident management team to move hospital crisis teams to other hospitals and long-term care crisis teams to other long-term care facilities, where the need is greatest,” he added.
