Sharon Levine, Associate Executive Medical Director of the Permanente Medical Group, outlines how the Kaiser Permanente integrated care system operates and describes the role of multispeciality medical practice in promoting integration.
This is a picture of Richmond quality performance in the fall of 2002. Up until that time, we had had 2 very bad years of quality performance. On the 4 PHASE type quality measures our performance was lowest in the region in 3 and almost there on the 4 th . On most measures, we were 20% below the regional average. We had been using the old quality model where the region set quality targets, the PIC assigned them to the chiefs and the chiefs, lacking much in the way of administrative or analytical support, basically counseled his department that they should do better. We had champions, held educational sessions and provided physicians with lists of patients needing inteventions, lists destined for a spot in the corner of their desk gathering dust and guilt. We were short providers, there were strongly competing initiatives like access and unlike other medical centers the measure it and talk about it approach wasn’t getting us anywhere. In the fall of 2002, we consciously adopted a population management approach to quality improvement. Switched to analyzing the population at risk, determining barriers to improvement and developing systems that leveraged and supported the physician to make doing the right thing easier.