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Dr. Sharon Anderson, Dean of the School of Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, recently lauded the tenure of Dr. Oscar John Ma as Professor and Chair of Emergency Medicine from 2007 to 2019.
“John Ma distinguished himself in achieving expanded access to top-tier emergency medical care that enables thousands of patients from the north coast to the Portland metro area to get the care they need when they most need it,” Dr. Anderson said in an interview for the university website. “His tenure as Chair of Emergency Medicine has been marked by results-oriented, innovative leadership across multiple missions. He has been an innovative, results-oriented leader who has achieved success across multiple missions.”
After twelve and a half years of Dr. Ma’s leadership, board-certified, residency-trained physicians are now staffing emergency rooms in Hillsboro, Astoria, and at Adventist in East Portland, in addition to emergency rooms at Doernbecher Children’s Hospitals to the 96,000 square-mile campus served by OHSU. While Dr. Ma served as Professor and Chair of Emergency Medicine, capacity to serve the emergency medical needs of Oregonians grew from 37,000 visits in 2007 to 170,000 visits in just the first half of 2019.
Under Dr. Ma’s guidance, OHSU signed an agreement with Columbia Memorial Hospital to assist the hospital in continuing improvements in local access to emergency health care. OHSU developed several collaborative programs with Columbia Memorial Hospital, starting with cancer care, then cardiology, and more recently general surgery and medical care. These collaborations have been enormously successful in serving more residents of the Lower Columbia Region while saving patients, families, and caretakers hundreds of thousands of trips for out-of-town care.
These successful collaborations have also added thousands of jobs to local economies and created training programs for the next generation of rural healthcare providers.
“Collaborations like the one we have developed with OHSU during Dr. Ma’s tenure,” Columbia Memorial Hospital CEO Erik Thorsen said, “have allowed us to maintain our at-risk services and also to add numerous new services during a particularly turbulent time in the healthcare industry. Our collaboration with OHSU Emergency Services enables us to keep our commitment to providing community care.”
Dr. Oscar John Ma’s emphasis on efficiency has enabled the coordination needed to provide seamless care across organizations that benefits both patients and clinicians seeking constant improvements in medical services. The joint program in emergency medicine developed during Dr. Ma’s leadership, OHSU’s Vice–President of Strategic Leadership Dr. Mark O’Hollaren said, “brings back valuable lessons to OHSU as we expand our collaborative programs.”
