Oral health has become an increasingly relevant topic in whole-body health care. While oral healthcare services can often be difficult to obtain in rural communities, one CEO is taking innovative steps to overcome that barrier. Today we are talking with Dr. Lesley Ogden a physician and CEO of Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital and Pacific Communities Hospital in Lincoln City, Oregon. Dr. Ogden will discuss her successes in implementing oral care into emergency medicine and her desires for the future of rural healthcare.
“They can also teach us, especially on the inpatient side, how to better take care of oral health.”
-Dr. Lesley Ogden
Dr. Lesley Ogden serves as Chief Executive Officer for the two Samaritan critical access hospitals in Lincoln County, located on the central Oregon coast. Before taking this top position, she served as Chief Operations Officer at Samaritan North Lincoln Hospital in Lincoln City and as interim CEO at Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital in Newport. Also, she worked clinically as an emergency and urgent care physician. Dr. Ogden is residency-trained and board certified in emergency medicine and has more than 10 years of clinical and leadership experience. She received her medical degree from the Medical University of South Carolina and completed her emergency medicine residency at Oregon Health and Science University.
In addition, Dr. Ogden received a master’s degree in business administration from The Citadel and a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Troy State University. A native of Florida, Dr. Ogden has made the rural Oregon coastal community her home since 2006. She is an active Rotarian in Lincoln City and served as club president from 2016-2017. She is also on the board of directors of the Economic Development Alliance of Lincoln County and the Oregon Coast Community College Foundation. Under Dr. Ogden’s leadership, both hospitals were entirely transformed recently, with a new hospital building in Lincoln City, new and renovated buildings, and a hospital campus in Newport. Both hospitals are part of Samaritan Health Services, a not-for-profit network of hospitals, clinics, and health services caring for more than 250,000 residents in the mid-Willamette Valley and central Oregon Coast.