SEASIDE, Ore.—Walter Shaffer, M.D., a founding partner of Providence Health System’s North Coast Clinic, has been named the new medical director of the Office of Medical Assistance Programs in the Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS).

Dr. Shaffer, 56, is the current chair of the state Health Resources Commission. He will leave his Seaside practice and start work in Salem on March 13. Dr. Shaffer succeeds Tom Turek, M.D., who recently retired.

“It has been my privilege to provide medical care to residents of the north Oregon Coast for 27 years,” said Dr. Shaffer. “While it will be difficult to leave my patients, friends, and colleagues, I look forward to a position in which I can serve even more people in need of health care.”

Shaffer’s duties will include clinical leadership for the state office that oversees operations of the Oregon Health Plan (OHP); responsibility for liaison with medical providers and provider groups; and clinical decision making on complex medical issues facing OHP.

In delivering the announcement, DHS director Bruce Goldberg said, “Dr. Shaffer’s three decades of family practice, combined with his Oregon Health Plan experience as both a practitioner and policy maker, make him an exemplary choice for this position. I’ve come to know him as a down-to-earth professional who is highly regarded by his peers in the profession.”

 Shaffer is a 1971 Phi Beta Kappa biology graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio. He received his medical degree in 1975 from the University of California in San Francisco. A former president of the Oregon Academy of Family Physicians, Dr. Shaffer was also the first president of the Oregon Academy of Family Physicians Foundation. He is the former chair of the Providence Seaside Hospital board of directors, a member of the American Academy of Family Physicians and the Oregon Medical Association. He holds a faculty appointment as clinical associate professor of family medicine at the Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland.

 Dr. Shaffer and his wife, Ann, will be relocating to Salem.

Contact:
David Rainey
(503)717-7236
david.rainey@providence.org

Providence Seaside Hospital is part of Providence Health System in Oregon, ranked as the fourth most integrated health care system in the nation. Providence offers a comprehensive array of health and education services through its seven hospitals, medical clinics, health plans, long-term care facilities and home health services. With more than 14,000 employees, Providence is the state’s second-largest private employer. Visit www.providence.org/oregon.