Kaiser Permanente Essay

Kaiser Permanente’s mission is to provide care assistance to those in need. As a health maintenance organization, Kaiser Permanente provides preventive care such as prenatal care, immunizations, diagnostics, hospital medical and pharmacy services. Also, they take responsibility and provide exceptional training for their future health professionals for better clinical performance and treatment for the patients. The organization is to ensure fair and proper treatment towards their employees for a pleasant working environment in hospital and to provide medical services especially in a growing population in suburban communities, such as Tracy and Stockton in California.

Operational Strategies

Kaiser Permanente operational strategy to maintain

a competitive advantage over the competitors is to focus on the safety of its members, social benefits, like helping others, rather than thinking about their shareholders profits. As a not for profit organization,

Kaiser Permanente is required to give services in the community to those who cannot afford to have insurance. This is done by lower prices of those who cannot afford to pay full price for their services. To have more advantage over its competitors, Kaiser Permanente came up with new method in its financing, to constantly research and train to develop a new financing method in its healthcare. This method serves patients by training their staff and researches to better serve their patients.
We have implemented new operational strategy for suburban areas such as Stockton and Tracy in California. Existing facilities and operational strategies may not be sufficient in the near future for these areas, because they are facing with growing population.
Our strategy in these suburban areas of growth is to train new health professionals; intruding new deliver and financing methods into the health care arena at large and through Kaiser’s clinical research efforts, developing and sharing better ways to care for the patients.

10 Operational Management Decision of Kaiser Permanente

1. Product Design and Services:
Kaiser Permanente is leader in plan design. They always evolve in a changing and challenging health care market.
Constant innovation and excellence in their produces defines Kaiser Permanente. They now serve 11.8 million members in 9 states. Kaiser Permanente health care system is model for the nation. Their pharmacy services are among the safest in the nation. Their hospitals receive highest rank in quality, safety and care. Comparing to others in the health care industry, their services give their customers the highest level of satisfaction.

2. Quality Management:
Because of suburban area growth, like Stockton and Tracy in California, Kaiser Permanente quality management is gaining increased attention.

At Kiser Permanente large and small entities are included in a medical compound, such as medical clinics, hospitals and pharmacies. These facilities need to provide quality service for the Kaiser system to work. By doing this they can better serve and fulfil the expectation of their patients, to keep up and to clarify the demands and needs of their patients, and to insure their patients of excellent care that they will provide.

3. Process and Capacity Design:
For Kaiser Permanente to stay at the same level as other hospitals, they should plan their goals. Their goals should include what kind of resources and technology they are going to use. One way to do this is to have steps that will guide them to how to reduce expenses and increase their business efficiently.

4. Location:
When Kaiser decides to open a new facility, they rely on their marketing and public relations departments. They consider demographics of the area to serve their community in an efficient way. They do survey of surrounding areas to know who leaves around that geographic area. The chosen location should be in the heart of the community to be easy accessible for their members. Accessibility is one of the factors in choosing a location and also the location usually is in a close proximity of a major

highway.

5. Layout Design and Strategy:
Kaiser Permanente pays close attention to the design of its facilities. They pay close attention to technology innovation, adaptability, flexibility and sustainability. When design team evaluate a site of a facility they under consideration of quality of products they use, cost and patient safety. They pay close attention the design to be flexible enough to cater to specific community needs. They use Uniformity in all their facilities, from the front office floor plan to the placement of desks and workstations.

6. Human Resources and Job Design:
Kaiser Permanente improves employee performance by continuously organize and implement improvement programs, by training their employees and giving them regular reviews. The outcome of this action causes the employees to achieve success. Their job design reduces job dissatisfaction and employee alienation at the work area.

7.

Supply Chain Management:

Kaiser Permanente is undergoing a supply chain transformation. It is the US’s largest none profit health plan, serving 9.5 million members with 38 hospitals and over 17,000 doctors and 48,000 nurses. Kaiser Permanente success depends on effectiveness and efficiency of their supply chain. Kaiser Permanente is successful because there chain management enhances performance and productivity with strategic combination of system, technology and people compare to other health care providers.

8. Inventory:
The medical supplies that is sourced by Kaiser Permanente headquarters is handled by an governmental agency DME (Durable Medical Equipment) department which handles equipment and supplies that are for repeated use and it may also provide crutches, oxygen equipment, wheelchairs or blood testing strips for diabetics. The rest of the supplies are handled locally by hospitals. Clinical engineering department is responsible for handling the medical supply inventory. They can distinguish which equipment needs to be included in the inventory after following guidelines of some government

agencies.

9. Scheduling:

In hospitals the task of scheduling patients is given to Appointment managers. Appointment managers assigned to schedule patient in an efficient way. They are the ones making the first impression to the patients and providers. Their main task is to organize and understand when the patient will be seen, when and how much time they need with the professional.

10. Maintenance:

At Kaiser maintaining healthy, safe and clean environment is very important to ensure good service. Medical devices are directly affecting human lives. They need to be maintained on regular basses. Clinical engineers are responsible for medical devices that require calibration, maintenance, repair, user training, and decommissioning. They apply medical technology to improve healthcare delivery. The second kind of maintenance in a hospital is performed by maintenance engineers. They are responsible to maintain and service refrigeration, ventilation system and air conditioning equipment in the hospitals.