Unit-based teams achieve milestone goal

High-performing teams more than double in number in 2011

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2011

Berkeley Regional Lab UBT huddles.

Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions have reached an important milestone, more than doubling the number of high-performing unit-based teams across the program in just one year.

Under the 2010 National Agreement, KP and its union partners set consistent, uniform criteria for assessing the performance of UBTs in all regions. They also committed to double the number of high-performing UBTs over the number of such teams in place at year-end 2010. Starting from a programwide baseline of 329 high-performing teams in January 2010, that meant the target was 658 high-performing teams by December 31.

As of December 1, there were 952 high-performing teams in place across the organization. That equals 28 percent of all UBTs operating across KP. At current rates of improvement, there will likely be a three-fold increase in the number of high-performing teams by December 31.

High-performing teams show higher levels of employee engagement and satisfaction than lower performing UBTs, and they take on more performance-improvement projects, to the benefit of Kaiser Permanente members and patients. To reach high performance, teams must reach Level 4 or 5 on a five-point scale in each of seven dimensions: sponsorship, leadership, training, team process, team member engagement, use of performance-improvement tools, and goals and performance.

The ultimate goal is to not just increase the number of high-performing teams, but to transform Kaiser Permanente in order to transform health care.

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