More pediatricians from more specialties say they’ll travel from Portland to Bend to see patients under an expanded partnership between Central Oregon Pediatric Associates and Randall Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel in Portland.

The families of Central Oregon’s roughly 40,000 children often must travel more than three hours to Portland to have their kids seen by pediatric specialists. The expanded program, which took effect in May, brings five new pediatric specialties to Central Oregon: gasteroenterology, surgery, neurology, urology, rheumatology and eating disorders.

COPA has had long-standing relationships with pediatricians from Oregon Health & Science University and Randall Children’s that have had doctors coming to Bend, but this will strengthen that and provide even more opportunities for families to seek care without traveling to Portland, said COPA CEO Wade Miller. A total of 15 pediatric specialists now regularly travel to Bend from Portland, he said.

“Really the driver was more about, ‘How do we help those families in our community not have to travel up the mountain?’” he said. “If we can bring those specialists here, that saves a lot of time and money.”

There are other benefits, too. Dr. Jennifer Lachman, a COPA pediatrician and managing partner, said when doctors are more accessible, patients are more likely to follow through with their medication regimens and actually get in to see their doctor.

“That’s a challenge, for example, with eating disorders,” she said. “Fortunately, we don’t have lots of them but it’s a challenging and complicated disorder. It’s really hard to get patients to comply with follow-up and to have coordinated care.”

And sometimes, if patients are told they have to go to Portland to see a doctor, they may be more likely to put those visits off, Lachman said.

The pediatricians from Randall Children’s will see patients at COPA’s east-side clinic in Bend, but appointments will be scheduled through Randall Children’s, not COPA.

Dr. Sharon Su, medical director for the division of pediatric nephrology at Randall Children’s, said some of the patients the specialists will see in Bend are existing patients who’ve had to travel to Portland for care. In the new format, it will be helpful for doctors to see patients in their own communities, she said.

“It’s always kind of nice to see how your patients and their families live, how they access health care — is it easy to drive there?” Su said.

Although COPA provides the waiting room and exam room space for the visits, Randall Children’s specialists will bring most of their own equipment, such as microscopes, and nursing staff, Su said.

Randall Children’s doctors will also bring their own computers, which are connected to the hospital’s electronic medical records system.

“One of the best things about electronic medical records for health care is that you can do a lot more of these remote outreaches and still be within our hospital system,” Su said.

Randall Children’s also sends doctors to cities like Corvallis, but Su said the partnership with COPA is its largest to date.

Like Lachman, Su said she thinks having the specialists in Bend will improve things like medication adherence for patients, and will make them more likely to actually get the care they need.

“It may make sure you come to your appointments because it’s not taking a whole day off just to drive up to see a doctor,” she said. “The idea is that the medical care we provide is better, too, because it’s more accessible.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0304,

tbannow@bendbulletin.com