Sky Lakes Medical Center has become the first hospital in Oregon to win the American Hospital Association’s Foster G. McGaw Prize for Excellence in Community Service, a national honor recognizing years of community health work in the Klamath Basin.

Oregon Tech students stand with mammography equipment used in the university’s Medical Imaging program. New grant support from the Roundhouse Foundation will help Oregon Tech purchase its first 3D mammography unit, expanding hands-on training for students preparing for healthcare careers. Photo courtesy of Oregon Tech.

Oregon Tech is closing the academic year with several campus updates, including a new dean, a fully online dental hygiene master’s program and recognition for retiring employees who served the university for a combined 113 years.

Southern Oregon communities are included in a new rural healthcare funding initiative that could expand school nursing services, support local hospitals and clinics, and create new grant opportunities for regional providers.

The Bonanza Clinic is marking 30 years of service after a grassroots community effort built the rural healthcare facility from the ground up in 1996. Following the sudden retirement of the area’s only physician, residents across Bonanza, Bly, Beatty, Dairy, Olene, and Sprague River mobilized to restore access to primary care. Volunteers donated labor, materials, and expertise to convert a former restaurant into a clinic, which has since provided more than 120,000 patient visits over three decades.

Oregon will receive $197.3 million in federal funding beginning in 2026 to strengthen rural healthcare, with investments focused on access to care, workforce support, disease prevention, and health technology across rural and frontier communities.