Friday, May 6, 2022 | Seaside Signal | SeasideSignal.com • A3
Through virtual ICU, patients
to get more access to expertise
By ABBEY McDONALD
The Astorian
The Oregon Court of Appeals has overturned a $1 billion timber settlement.
Timber verdict overturned
Appeals court sides with the state
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
SALEM — The Oregon
Court of Appeals has struck
down a $1 billion jury ver-
dict that was intended to
compensate county govern-
ments for insuffi cient log-
ging on state forestlands.
A law that requires Ore-
gon to manage the forest-
land for the greatest perma-
nent value does not create
an “immutable promise” to
maximize revenue for the
counties, the appeals court
ruled in April.
The appeals court said
that “historically, ‘value’ has
myriad defi nitions, some of
which could relate to reve-
nue production and others
that do not relate to revenue
production.”
The statute also directs
that forests be managed for
the greatest permanent value
to the state, rather than to the
counties, which means the
text falls short of the clear
and unmistakable intent of
making a contractual prom-
ise, the ruling said.
For that reason, a Cir-
cuit Court judge in Linn
County wrongly refused to
dismiss the class-action law-
suit against the state govern-
ment, the ruling said.
“The Court of Appeals
decision today is a victory
for Oregon’s environment as
well as for sound forest man-
agement,” state Attorney
General Ellen Rosenblum
said. “The court agreed with
the state’s legal position in
recognizing that Oregon’s
forests serve a full range of
environmental, recreational
and economic uses that the
Department of Forestry has
authority to balance in order
to secure the greatest value
to all Oregonians.”
John DiLorenzo, an attor-
ney for the counties, vowed
to challenge the ruling
before the Oregon Supreme
Court because it “does not
align with the law or the evi-
dence we presented at trial.”
The ruling doesn’t take
into account the economic
and social damage that rural
communities have suff ered
after the state government
changed its logging policies
without input from the coun-
ties, he said in an email.
Oregon’s leaders have
decided the timber econ-
omy is inconsistent with
their “urban values,” but
the resulting problems must
be addressed to bridge
the urban-rural divide,
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DiLorenzo said.
“The lack of productive
employment in these com-
munities has led to sub-
stance abuse, violence, lack
of educational opportunity
and general hopelessness
and despair,” he said.
A jury determined the
state violated a contract
requiring it to maximize
revenue from forestlands
donated by the counties in
the 1930s and ‘40s after a
monthlong trial in 2019.
A CIRCUIT
COURT JUDGE
IN LINN COUNTY
WRONGLY
REFUSED TO
DISMISS THE
CLASS-ACTION
LAWSUIT
AGAINST
THE STATE
GOVERNMENT,
THE RULING
SAID.
State forests must be
managed for the greatest
permanent value by law, but
more than a dozen counties
claimed the Oregon Depart-
ment of Forestry impermis-
sibly expanded that defi -
nition beyond its original
intent. In 2017, the Clatsop
County Board of Commis-
sioners voted 3 to 2 to opt
out of the lawsuit, citing a
need for more balanced for-
est management.
Under language adopted
in the late 1990s, the great-
est permanent value was
changed to include environ-
mental and recreational con-
siderations that restricted
timber harvests, shortchang-
ing the counties and tax dis-
tricts within them of reve-
nues, the plaintiff s claimed.
Attorneys for Oregon
appealed the jury verdict on
the grounds that the counties
didn’t have an enforceable
contract that dictated how
state forest offi cials must
manage the nearly 700,000
acres of donated property.
The law governing state
forestlands pertains to mat-
ters of statewide concern
that cannot be challenged in
court by the counties, state
attorneys claimed. As polit-
ical subdivisions of the state
government, the counties
cannot sue over such state
policies.
Federal
environmen-
tal laws enacted since the
property was donated, such
as the Endangered Spe-
cies Act, also eff ectively
limit how much timber can
be extracted from state for-
estlands, according to state
attorneys.
The counties claimed that
Oregon forestry offi cials
weren’t obligated to create
habitat for federally-pro-
tected species that resulted
in logging restrictions. In
any case, the counties said
the state government can
alter forest management pol-
icies but must still pay them
damages for breaching the
contract.
Counties provide health
care and other functions
under contract with the
state government, so they
must be able to rely on such
agreements being enforce-
able, the plaintiff s said. If
the counties had known the
state government could rein-
terpret the contract’s terms
at will, they’d never have
donated such huge amounts
of forestlands.
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Patients who check into
the intensive care unit at
Columbia Memorial Hos-
pital may fi nd themselves
speaking to a robot on
wheels to get a consultation
from a doctor a hundred
miles away.
Since July 2020, the
Astoria hospital has been
working with Oregon
Health & Science Uni-
versity Hospital to use the
tele-intensivist consult ser-
vice, allowing providers
in Portland to give remote
consultations to patients
and collaborate with local
doctors.
OHSU’s intensivists —
doctors who specialize in
intensive care — speak to
patients through a screen
wheeled to their bedsides.
Chris Strear, the chief
medical offi cer at Colum-
bia Memorial, said the con-
sultations have allowed the
hospital to retain complex
cases that might otherwise
be transferred to the larger
hospital over two hours
away.
Backed by nearly $1
million in federal funding
secured last month, Colum-
bia Memorial will have
expanded access with the
creation of a virtual ICU.
The partner hospitals have
not settled on a timeline.
Strear said the virtual
ICU will increase access
to OHSU’s infrastructure
and regionalize health care
services that have been
stretched thin during the
coronavirus pandemic.
With a virtual ICU,
Columbia Memorial’s pro-
viders will still be going
into rooms to care for
patients. At the same time,
OHSU nurses and phy-
sicians will use cameras,
audio equipment and access
to monitors from their con-
trol center.
Lydia Ely/The Astorian
The Columbia Memorial
Hospital ICU is refl ected in a
camera lens of the robot used
for remote consultations.
“Instead of getting a
snapshot, when the provider
here engages with them
they’re actively monitor-
ing these patients just like
we are,” Strear said. “So
it’s as if these patients are
in the OHSU ICU, except
virtually. So the ability to
monitor the patients more
closely and more intensely
is there.”
The Connected Coast
Virtual ICU, a partnership
between OHSU, Colum-
bia Memorial and Bay
Area Hospital in Coos
Bay, received $943,000 in
the $1.5 trillion omnibus
spending package Presi-
dent Joe Biden signed in
March.
The funding will go
toward installing equip-
ment in each room, rather
than having the mobile
robot shared between
rooms, and help pay the
nurses and intensivists
working at OHSU, accord-
ing to Columbia Memorial.
“So it’ll help support
that a little bit so we can
keep the costs down for
the patients, and it’ll help
us prove that this is really
a good thing to do,” said
Judy Geiger, Columbia
Memorial’s vice president
of patient care services.
The hospitals discussed
a virtual ICU in 2019 as
a way to keep patients in
their communities. They
launched the consultation
service as a fi rst step.
“It’s certainly been used
more since the pandemic
VETERANS IN
CLATSOP COUNTY
NEED YOUR HELP!
Clatsop County’s Rural Veterans Healthcare
Transportation is seeking volunteers to help
our local veterans access their crucial medical
appointments.
Volunteer drivers are needed to pick up
veterans at their home, take them to their local
appointment and bring them home from the
appointment. There also are times when a
veteran will need to be taken to an appointment
in Portland and returned home. Volunteer
drivers are reimbursed for the miles they drive.
If you are a licensed driver and own or have
access to a vehicle and can volunteer to
transport veterans to healthcare appointments
please contact:
Jason Jones
Mobility Manager
Sunset Empire Transportation District
503-861-5361
jason@ridethebus.org
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started,” Geiger said. “The
hospitals have been very
full in Portland and so
we’ve kept patients a lit-
tle bit longer and a little bit
sicker than we would have
otherwise. And we felt like
we could do it very safely
with the OHSU support.”
The hospital uses the
consultation service twice a
day on average.
Patients
typically
respond well to the remote
services, Geiger said. Pro-
viders have scripts to
explain what the service
will be like before turning
the camera on.
The hospital said that
patients can expect the
same level of care with a
virtual provider.
“We kind of have the
best of both worlds, because
the complicated part of car-
ing for these patients isn’t
the physical exam. It’s not
hooking them up to the
monitor or measuring their
blood pressure. The com-
plicated part is: What do
you do with all of this data?
How do you analyze it and
turn it into a care plan? And
you don’t need to be in the
same room to talk about
what the tests show, or what
the X-rays show or how the
patient is responding to the
treatment,” Strear said.
Patients needing spe-
cialists and surgeries that
are not available locally
will still be transferred to
Portland.
Columbia
Memo-
rial expects the virtual
ICU to still be in demand
even if hospitalizations
from COVID continue to
decrease.
“We’ve always had
patients that tradition-
ally transferred to Port-
land that now, hopefully,
with COVID forcing us
to up our game and with
the augmented help from
the virtual ICU, we’ll now
be keeping these patients
here,” Strear said.