State’s new online tool has food, lodging inspections

Many people usually depend on Yelp for their restaurant reviews, but a new web portal launched by the Oregon Health Authority on Tuesday helps consumers see how clean the facilities are behind the scenes.

The state offers consumers real-time inspection reports for food, public swimming and lodging facilities.

There are 25,000 licensed facilities inspected every year in Oregon.

OHA’s Foodborne Illness Prevention Program coordinator, David Martin, told NewsChannel 21 the new website is designed to give consumers peace of mind.

“The great thing about this system now is anybody who’s interested in accessing reports can get those,” he said. “It used to be you had to go into your county health department and look the file up, and you don’t have to do that anymore. You just sit down on your computer at home and look up any restaurant or pool you’re interested in using.”

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Here is the agency’s news release announcing the portal:

The Oregon Health Authority announced Tuesday it has launched a new web portal that will allow people to easily find inspection reports for facilities such as restaurants, swimming pools and hotels.

The portal is part of an updated statewide licensing and inspection system. This updated system will also collect inspection data in a way that will help OHA and county health departments better identify violation trends.

“For the first time, people can get inspection results for every licensed facility in the state,” said David Martin, Foodborne Illness Prevention Program coordinator at the OHA Public Health Division. “It will also give us improved data we will use to address risk factors that can lead to illness or injury.”

Oregon has about 25,000 licensed food, pool and lodging facilities. They include restaurants, mobile units, commissaries, warehouses, vending operations, swimming pools, spas, travelers’ accommodations, recreational parks and organizational camps. All facilities are licensed and inspected locally by county health departments.

Inspections are unannounced and focus on items most likely to cause illness or injury to patrons, but also include items such as general cleanliness and maintenance. In a food service facility, the focus is on approved food sources, cooking temperatures, holding temperatures of food, personal hygiene of food handlers and contaminated or dirty equipment. For a public pool or spa, the emphasis is on proper disinfection, clarity, entrapment concerns, proper filtration and the pool enclosure. Tourist facilities are evaluated for safety and general sanitation concerns.

OHA’s online inspection portal can be accessed at: https://healthspace.com/Clients/Oregon/State/StateWebPortal.nsf/home.xsp.

HealthSpace replaces a system known as Phoenix that had been in use by 34 Oregon counties since 1994.

The data available for a county on HealthSpace depends on when that county began using the site. That means there may be some facilities without inspection information until they have had an inspection loaded in the new system. It takes 14 days after an inspection until the data appears on the site.

The site will show semi-annual, biennial and annual routine inspections as well as reinspections.

This will be the first time that this information is available to the public for 34 of Oregon’s 36 counties. Two other counties, Washington and Multnomah, use their own licensing and inspection reporting sites, although Multnomah County will be using HealthSpace starting in March 2018.

“The rollout exceeded expectations,” Martin said. “HealthSpace was released on time and for less than was budgeted. It will be a great tool to use to work with our industry and regulatory partners to improve compliance and better protect the public from food, pool and lodging-related illness and injury.”