S.M.A.R.T bill signed into law!

Using organizing principles from start to finish, the Safe Medication for All Requires Translation bill became law!

Through the organizing principles of: LISTENING, RESEARCH, and ACTION, student, physician, and faculty organizers were able to see a health equity issue all the way through to legislation! 

LISTENING to patients, nursing students noticed that many immigrant and refugee patients were not taking their medications properly.  Continuing the conversations, they found out it was because these patients could not always read their prescription bottles.

The health equity organizers began to RESEARCH the problem and eventually wrote their own legislative concept, which would become the Safe Medication for All Requires Translation (S.M.A.R.T) bill.

They took ACTION, finding legislative champions and a wide variety of endorsers for the bill.  This spring they traveled to Salem to testify before both House and Senate committees.  

On Thursday, June 20, Governor Kate Brown signed the bill into law.  Now all patients in Oregon are guaranteed that, along with English, their prescriptions will be written in a language they can read.

Job well done, organizers.