performance improvement

Below is the most recent table showing unit-based team performance across Kaiser Permanente. Our National Agreement goal was to have 658 high-achieving teams by the end of 2011. With 1,097 teams rated at level 4 or 5 in early January, we have almost doubled our goal for the year – and more than tripled the number of high performing teams in place in January 2011.

As we come into the home stretch of 2011, we are on track to double the number of high- performing unit-based teams by December. It has us thinking about what structural elements exist in places we consistently find high-performing teams. We find that the facilities with the greatest number of high-performing teams have some consistent ingredients. Our recent visit to the Fresno Medical Center in Northern California demonstrated what facilities with lots of high-performing teams have in common.

It is difficult to overestimate the impact and dedication of unit-based team consultants, improvement advisers, union partnership representatives and others who coach UBTs. In just a few short years we have developed an in-house performance improvement corps that is unique in U.S. health care. These unsung heroes deserve full support from regional leadership. Unfortunately, they don’t always get it.

Earlier this month, I spent the day with teams, co-leads and union and management leaders at the Los Angeles Medical Center (LAMC).  It is clear that the sun is rising at LAMC, formerly known as “Kaiser Sunset.”

LAMC, a huge campus in the City of Los Angeles, is an exciting and bustling place situated between urban commercial and apartment properties and not far from Hollywood. It includes a large medical center, medical office buildings, and other services

Imagine this:

A flowing line leading to a heart; underneath the image the words: “PICC Team Going Great Lengths to Care for You”

These words can be found on the lab coats, scrubs and other clothing of each member of the Infusion team at Woodland Hills Medical Center in Southern California.

The team members designed the emblem as a reassuring message to the patients they serve. It sums up their story.

We’re almost half way through 2011, and all the regions are helping their unit-based teams advance along the Path to Performance. This has not been the easiest of transitions—the process requires team co-leads and sponsors to agree on their team performance assessments, and on the interpretation of specific language in the Path to Performance document.

Our work in the Labor Management Partnership has many important implications for achieving success at Kaiser Permanente and the health care industry as a whole. Why is this so important to union members and the unions to which they belong?

Sometimes when I am having discussions with people, they raise important questions about why we are so focused on performance improvement at Kaiser Permanente, in the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions and in the Labor Management Partnership. Sometimes it goes like this:

The Path to Performance has been on the minds of regional LMP co-leads, UBT consultants and sponsors recently as we finished gathering baseline data on high-performing teams. None of us were surprised, as we collapsed four different score cards and multiple criteria into a single system for rating team progress, by the decrease in the number of high-performing teams. Thanks to everyone’s hard work, we reached agreement on the tool, and the process for the rating was unified and the data loaded in UBT tracker by January 14.

Our travels took us to the beautiful island of Oahu to meet with some regional leaders and UBT co-leads. Their hospitality was outstanding and it is clear why Hawaii is called “paradise.”

The Hawaii region is the newest to join the Partnership and has the advantage of learning from the experience of other regions. In fact, some UBT consultants recently met with their colleagues in San Diego.