The number of prisoners in Oregon who saw an off-site medical specialist swelled to about 1,600 in August as the state Department of Corrections works to reduce a backlog of prisoners who need specialty care, a top corrections administrator told lawmakers Tuesday.

Corrections Director Michael Reese and Kevin Bovenkamp, the state’s new assistant director of health services , updated the lawmakers about the state’s long troubled prison health care system .

Bovenkamp pointed to the said more prisoners are receiving off-site specialty care and compared the latest figures to April when 1,100 people were seen off-site.

He also said Oregon is set to begin rolling out an electronic medical records system next month. Prisoner health records are now maintained in paper files.

“The department

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