Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente is the nation's largest vertically integrated healthcare delivery system. Comprised of Kaiser Foundation hospitals and their subsidiaries, the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and the Permanente Medical Groups, the organization as a whole serves 9.1 million members.
Below are 20 things to know about Kaiser Permanente.
- Kaiser Permanente includes 38 hospitals, 618 medical offices, 16,942 physicians, 48,701 nurses and 174,259 employees.
- Kaiser Permanente is led by Chairman and CEO Bernard J. Tyson.
- Kaiser Permanente has an annual operating revenue in excess of $50 billion.
- In fiscal year 2013, net income at Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and all other subsidiaries within Kaiser Permanente increased 3.4 percent to almost $2.7 billion.
- Each independent Permanente Medical Group operates as a for-profit organization, though the dominant payer for each is its respective Kaiser Foundation Health Plan division.
- Of the top 55 urban medical centers in the country, more than a third (19) are run by Kaiser Permanente, according to The Leapfrog Group.
- During the Great Depression, Contractors General Hospital, the small 12-bed desert hospital that was the seed for Kaiser Permanente, was one of the first providers in the country to engage in prepayment with insurers. Late insurance reimbursements and a significant number of uninsured patients compelled the hospital, which treated mainly construction workers, to collect a fixed amount per day per worker to cover services. Initially, this amount was five cents per worker per day.
- Henry J. Kaiser, an industrialist, recruited Sidney Garfield, MD, the founder of Contractors General Hospital to provide the same form of prepaid healthcare to his workers, establishing the integrated system that would become Kaiser Permanente.
- On Oct. 1, 1945, the Permanente Health Plan officially opened to the public. Within 10 years, enrollment had surpassed 300,000 members.
- Kaiser Permanente used to have presences in North Carolina, Texas and Ohio. The Ohio division was sold the most recently, to Cincinnati-based Catholic Health Partners in 2013.
- From 2007 until his retirement in 2013, former CEO George Halvorson personally wrote an email every Friday to all of the organization's employees celebrating Kaiser Permanente's successes, awards and milestones.
- By 1973, a computerized medical record existed for all Kaiser Permanente patients.
- Kaiser Permanente's Epic electronic health record system, KP HealthConnect, was deployed organizationwide over the course of six years at a cost of more than $4 billion (or about $444 per member).
- A previous homegrown EHR project was abandoned in 2004. Then-CEO George Halvorson made the decision to write off the $400 million cost and begin a partnership with Epic.
- 37 Kaiser Permanente hospitals have reached HIMSS Analytics stage 7.
- In 2012, Kaiser Permanente invested approximately $2 billion into the community, mostly through investments in health research ($169.4 million).
- Approximately 2,000 studies involving Kaiser Permanente clinicians and researchers are underway at any given time.
- Kaiser Permanente's Labor Management Partnership was founded in 1997 following a series of labor disputes and currently covers more than 92,000 union employees, 20,000 managers and 9,000 physicians in nine states and Washington, D.C.
- Kaiser Permanente serves as the official medical provider of the Sacramento Kings, as part of an agreement that went into effect this season.
- Kaiser Permanente's new San Diego hospital will cost more than $900 million, and will feature up to 450 beds, video conferencing tools, the latest patient room and surgical technology, outdoor gardens and more.
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