Senate Healthcare Committee adopts rules, hears statewide health-care workforce assessment

The Oregon Senate Committee on Healthcare on Jan. 21 adopted its committee rules for the 2025 session and held an informational meeting focused on statewide health-care workforce needs, forecasting job growth and outlining training and retention strategies.

Committee Chair Senator Deb Patterson opened the session at 3 p.m., confirmed a quorum and presided over the organizational action to adopt the committee rules dated Jan. 21, 2025. Vice Chair Senator Hayden moved to adopt the rules; after a roll-call by the clerk the chair declared the motion passed.

The committee then heard a multi-panel informational on health-care workforce supply and demand. Economists from the Oregon Employment Department, Gail Kremenauer and Jason Payton, told the committee that overall job growth in Oregon was positive but slow between 2023 and 2024, and that growth was highly concentrated in private health care and social assistance. Kremenauer said private health care and social assistance accounted for a disproportionate share of recent openings and vacancies. Payton described long-term projections showing health care and social assistance growing faster than the statewide average: the Employment Department forecast expects the sector to grow about 13% between 2023 and 2033 and to add the largest number of new jobs of any sector over that decade. The department also emphasized that replacement openings (to replace retirees or workers who change occupations) substantially increase the number of training slots needed each year.

Speakers highlighted the mix of occupations with large and persistent demand, including personal care aides, nursing assistants, registered nurses and growing demand for mid-level clinicians such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants. The presenters noted emerging occupations (for example, genetic counselors) and stressed regional variation: while metropolitan areas will capture many openings, rural and frontier regions from Eastern to Southern Oregon also face shortages and will need locally based training and retention strategies.

Claire Pierce Roble, director of Health Policy and Analytics at the Oregon Health Authority (OHA), and Dr. Tao Li of Oregon State University summarized OHA’s 2025 Healthcare Workforce Needs Assessment. The biennial report — prepared under direction of the Legislature and the Oregon Health Policy Board — documents that many health-care vacancies require education beyond high school, that licensed clinical workforces are less diverse than the state population, and that rural and underserved areas continue to have greater unmet needs. The report groups recommendations around four themes: sustain funding for workforce development and retention; improve workforce diversity and distribution; scale education and clinical placement capacity; and improve data collection to target efforts and measure progress.

OHA staff described existing state programs that the assessment informs, including the healthcare provider incentive program (established by the Legislature in 2017). Pierce Roble said that the agency’s incentive programs and other state-funded initiatives have supported thousands of health-care workers since 2018 and that OHA continues to consider which recommendations it can advance within current resources and which will need future legislative action.

A third panel described training, apprenticeship and employer-driven upskilling programs. Rebecca Hansen of the SEIU Education Fund (Shirley Weber Education Center) described a labor-management training fund that partners with employers across Oregon; she outlined employer contributions to training, program completion rates and connections between upskilling and retention. Andy Friedman of United We Heal described registered apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeship work in high schools and community providers that allow participants to “earn while they learn,” avoid student debt and remain in the workforce while obtaining credentials. Katie Combs of RISE Partnership explained labor–management programs focused on long-term care and home- and community-based services; she said benefit access and portable career pathways improve retention and that some pilot stackable-credential pathways (CNA to LPN, for example) are underway.

Committee members asked for follow-up details on several topics, including first-year RN turnover rates, the composition of private health care versus public health care in the employment data, and geographic distribution of openings. Staff said they will provide additional information to the committee at later hearings.

Votes at a glance: The committee adopted the Senate Committee on Healthcare committee rules dated Jan. 21, 2025. Vice Chair Hayden moved to adopt the rules; the clerk called the roll and the chair declared the motion passed.

Why it matters: Committee members and presenters framed workforce shortages as a statewide and long-term policy issue — affecting hospital staffing, primary care access, long-term care and behavioral health — that will require ongoing investments in training capacity, incentives for practice in underserved areas, licensing reciprocity or streamlining, and workplace improvements to reduce burnout and turnover.

What’s next: The committee scheduled an informational hearing on nursing-home ownership transparency for Thursday and will begin policy hearings on referred bills the following week.