Recently, President Obama described the care his grandmother received at Kaiser Permanente to Time magazine this way: 

 “…it’s actually one of the models of high-quality, cost-efficient care that’s out there right now, partly because they maintain such a stable base of patients and they construct a whole team approach that has proven to be very effective.So my grandmother was generally very happy with her care, and if we could actually get our health care system across the board to hit the efficiency levels of a Kaiser Permanente or a Cleveland Clinic or a Mayo or a Geisinger, we actually would have solved our problems.”

It is amazing, yet not surprising somehow, that as the president of the United States was embracing Kaiser Permanente as a model for the nation, one of the nurses who cared for his grandmother was participating in a series of classes and discussions about frontline health care transformation through the KP Hawaii region’s Labor Management Partnership. 

All this synergy, all this coming together—from the president to the caregiver—it's what is supposed to happen when we are determined to create a "line of sight" from the workplace to the transformation of critical social institutions, like health care.

When the president identified Kaiser Permanente as one of the systems for the nation to model, he pointed to a health care system that is already a leader, and a system that is revolutionizing care by engaging frontline workers. Experience tells us that new technology and efforts to improve quality and cut cost will not succeed unless the workforce is at the center of innovation.

A humane workplace leads to humane care  

The foundation of our Partnership is not based on self-interest, as some people might assume. Rather, we say: "We are transforming Kaiser Permanente so we can transform health care in America.” The workplace should be a place where people of differing backgrounds and experience come together every single day to perform the miracle of production in this case, the miracle of delivering high-quality, affordable health care. 

Most workplaces do not create an atmosphere where the product is seen as an outcome of mutual interest and, as a result, the very place where we spend most of our lives becomes alienating, even polarized, with little sense of trust or collaboration.

For me, production is the result of a tremendous amount of human intellectual and physical effort—effort that comes deep from within the souls, brains and bodies of working people day in and day out. If we do not harness that effort in the most inclusive and respectful way, the relationship between the effort and the production  tears apart and becomes the basis of conflict and mistrust.

The nation is in need of total repair. Part of that repair involves the desperate and humane requirement that every child, woman and man in this nation have access to the best health care at an affordable and sustainable cost. Each step on this journey towards universal care evokes powerful stories, not unlike the one that President Obama shared about the wonderful care his grandmother received from the dedicated frontline staff and the integrated system of Kaiser Permanente.

Every day we wake up in our Partnership to a line of sight from the workplace to the creation of an effective, humane, affordable, health delivery system for our nation. 

It is an audacious dream of hope for the nation.