OHA Director

Dr. Sejal Hathi, MD, MBA

Dr. Hathi comes to Oregon after serving most recently as New Jersey's deputy health commissioner for public health services and its designated state health officer. Prior to that, she served in the Biden-Harris Administration for two years as the White House’s Senior Policy Advisor for Public Health, leading various domestic presidential policy priorities. A board-certified attending physician, she also held joint faculty appointments as an assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine & Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Sejal Hathi, MD, MBA

Dr. Hathi's Statewide Listening Sessions

Dr. Hathi has concluded her seven visits to communities around Oregon. The goal of the listening sessions was to provide local public health partners, coordinated care organizations, providers, community-based organizations and community members an opportunity to tell the new OHA director about their needs and priorities and how OHA can support and facilitate their work.

From Pendleton to Astoria, and Medford to The Dalles, she heard from “the people who have rolled up their sleeves and are doing the work” and their concerns about access to health care, the overdose crisis, and racial and geographic inequities, among other issues.

In rural Eastern Oregon, one immediate need is more emergency and transitional housing for people who are houseless and seeking treatment for substance use disorder or harmful substance use, like the facility celebrated in Friday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Other issues heard during meetings with providers, community-based leaders, local public health and mental health authorities, and the CCO in Eastern Oregon included difficulties with funding models that don’t scale down for sparse populations, the challenges of operating remote clinics and small hospitals, a shortage of health care workers, particularly OBGYNs, and the travel cost of providing care in a landscape where towns are hours apart.

“As I have started my new role at OHA, my priority has been to listen, to learn, and to partner with Oregonians to design the best solutions to our shared challenges,” Dr. Hathi said. “I am grateful to everyone who attended one of the sessions, shared their ideas and innovations, their concerns and complaints. Working together, I sincerely believe we can improve the health and wellbeing of everyone in Oregon, no matter where they live.”

OHA will release a report this summer highlighting what Dr. Hathi has heard during these regional visits and how OHA is addressing the issues raised.