This short animated video explains how to find and use our powerful how-to guides
Does your team want to improve service? Or clinical quality? If you don't know where to start, check out the team-tested practices on the LMP website. This short video shows you how.
Having trouble using the search function? Check out this short video to help you search like a pro!
Need to find a checklist, template or puzzle? Don't know where to start? Check out this short video to find the tools you need on the LMP website with just a few clicks.
Format:
PDF
Size:
11" x 17" (tabloid)
Intended audience:
Managers, union stewards and others who want to promote the workforce development programs offered by Kaiser Permanente and our unions.
Best used:
Print out this tabloid-sized poster to hang in work areas and break rooms.
Format:
PDF (color or black and white)
Size:
8.5" x 11"
Intended audience:
Anyone with a sense of humor
Best used:
Our comic superhero demonstrates that together we can navigate and conquer the future.
Format:
PDF
Size:
8.5" x 11"
Intended audience:
Frontline workers, managers and physicians
Best used:
Print out and share copies of this word search at the start of your next meeting. Team members will look for the words related to continuing their education.
Want to take your team to the next level? Make good things happen for yourself, your co-workers and your members and patients? Collaboration is one of the four critical skills needed to meet future challenges with ease. Use these 12 team-building tips to make every month count.
Celebrate your team’s successes and acknowledge — even celebrate — failures. Failures are great opportunities for learning if you focus on where the process (not the person) needs improvement. After each test of change, recognize and reward contributing team members at huddles and meetings. Use small wins to keep the momentum going.
Help employees track their sick days and time off by printing out and distributing our colorful, always popular attendance calendar.
Learn your department’s budget as a team and get everyone’s ideas on how to reduce costs. Sign up for a business literacy training.
Document your team’s work regularly, accurately and concisely in UBT Tracker. It will let others see and learn from your team’s accomplishments.
Ask for help or call a stop to the work when you see an imminent danger or need help to safely complete a task. Then look for system improvements and root causes of problems — ask not just what happened, but why.
Rotate responsibilities for leading meetings and managing improvement projects among all team members. This will build your team’s skills and strengths.
Huddle daily. It works. Watch the video “Huddle Power” and use the tools there to get you started huddling with your team.
Become supply savvy. Make a full assessment of supplies — track inventory, tidy up storage areas and streamline ordering. Simple changes can save thousands of dollars. Download our 6S tool to make this work a snap.
Perform a waste walk. Impartially observe a work area or work process to identify waste or inefficiency. Get walking with our online Waste Walk toolkit.
Go paperless. Don’t print out agendas and documents. Send them out via email or use a projector instead.
Help patients sign up on kp.org. Remind them they can securely view their medical records and most lab results, email their doctors, schedule appointments and refill prescriptions online. Bonus tip: Encourage tech-savvy members to download the kp.org app so they can access these features on their phones. Check out how one team got 90 percent of its patients signed up.
Did something work for your team? Spread the word to others. Need inspiration for your next improvement project? Look for other teams that have succeeded. Work with your UBT consultant or union partnership representative to spread your successes. Visit our Team-Tested Practices section to get ideas you can try with your team!
In the early 2000s, Blockbuster ruled the video rental roost.
Now it’s all but gone.
Blockbuster didn’t adapt to customer needs and technology trends. Netflix did.
Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions recognize that if you don’t change with the times, you can get left behind.
The National Agreement addresses the importance of preparing for the future in partnership; section 1D of the agreement covers workforce planning and development.
Under the 2015 agreement, two educational trusts — Ben Hudnall Memorial Trust and SEIU UHW-West & Joint Employer Education Fund — received additional funding to provide workers represented by a coalition union with a variety of services, and training and education programs. Joint work on addressing experience barriers, which have sometimes prevented newly trained workers from being hired into KP jobs, is also under way.
The agreement details the structure for coordinating workforce planning and development. A national team aligns, integrates and coordinates workforce development and training efforts in partnership with the regions. Each region has a workforce planning and development committee chaired by labor and management co-leads.
The five key components of this work are:
“The goal is to prepare union workers for changes to jobs,” says LeAnda Russell, the coalition’s national coordinator for job innovation. “We support the lifelong learning and career development of our workers.”
It’s paying off. Use of the educational trusts has increased to record levels.
Russell encourages employees to keep learning to build the job skills needed as health care evolves. In other words — don’t hit the rewind button. It’s time to press play.
“Technology is here,” Russell says. “Don’t be afraid.”
For Carolina Aceves, technology and health care go hand in hand.
Shortly after completing a new online digital fluency course for Kaiser Permanente employees, she saw firsthand how technology can transform a life. Her mother needed a kidney transplant, but neither she nor her siblings were a match. In October 2017, however, in a series of matches orchestrated through a national computer system, she donated a kidney as part of a chain of donations that resulted in her mother receiving a kidney.
In December, she returned to work at the California Service Center in San Diego, where she is an account administrative representative, fielding calls from KP members and answering their questions. She also chairs a young leader council for OPEIU Local 30 — and is leveraging that role to mobilize all represented members of her unit-based team, urging colleagues of all ages to take the digital fluency course.
“Health care is changing,” Aceves says. “Be current. Do your homework. Advance your career.”
Digital fluency is one of four critical skills that will be essential in the health care of the future. The new online program, which helps participants understand the role of technology in health care, is free to workers represented by a union in the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions through the Ben Hudnall Memorial Trust, the SEIU UHW-West & Joint Employer Education Fund, and National Workforce Planning and Development.
The national workforce office also is developing programs for the other three critical skills — consumer focus, collaboration and process improvement — as part of a larger strategy to encourage employees to upgrade their skills, advance their careers and meet the changing demands of health care.
“Whether you work in a medical center, clinic or office, we encourage employees to take the digital fluency program,” says Monica Morris, the director of National Workforce Planning
and Development.
Digital fluency skills are good for workers, KP members and the organization, says Jessica Butz, the coalition’s national coordinator for Workforce Planning and Development. While some may fear technology will eliminate jobs, the push at KP is to use it not to replace workers but to enhance the care and service they deliver.
“Learning these critical skills will prepare our workers for jobs in the future and give them the tools to shape and improve care for our members and patients,” Butz says.
The Business Literacy Series (BLS) is a highly interactive and engaging curriculum designed to educate frontline teams/departments about the business of Kaiser Permanente. These face-to-face courses encourage active learning through group activities. Courses may be delivered at a dedicated training session or be used as just-in-time tools at staff meetings, UBT meetings or brown bag sessions to meet the needs of each region, service area or medical center.
Scroll down for details on each course or download an at-a-glance description.
Level 3
Each course runs between 45 and 55 minutes:
Job categories include labor and management members of a unit-based team.
It is recommended participants have completed their foundational LMP training for level 1 and 2 teams.
This 45-minute course explains KP's unique business model: Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, the Permanente Medical Group and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals (or locally contracted hospital services). At the end of this session, learners will be able to explain the competitive advantages of this model and the benefits to KP members.
This 50-minute course shows how our decisions and actions can influence the cost of care to KP members and patients. REM focuses on KP’s primary sources of revenue, and how revenues and expenses are allocated across the organization. Learners discuss factors that may lead revenues to rise or fall, and the need to have and meet a margin. At the end of this session, learners will understand the importance of participating in affordability projects.
This 55-minute course examines the financial challenges facing KP members who struggle to afford health care services. It addresses rising health care costs and current trends in today’s changing marketplace. Through video clips, group discussions and brainstorming, participants are encouraged to think about what they can do as individuals and unit-based team members to help improve operations and reduce waste. At the end of this session, learners will understand the need to play a role in improving the affordability of care.
This 45-minute course shows the connection between the work teams do and the external measures used in the marketplace to evaluate KP’s success. The course offers an overview of key (publically reported) performance metrics, such as the Medicare Star Quality Ratings System, HEDIS (Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set), CAHPS (Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Plans and Systems) and HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Plans and Systems). Learners review case studies and KP service scores that are linked to UBT development. At the end of this session, learners will understand how their unit-based teams can influence these metrics and have a positive impact on KP’s external measures of success.
This 45-minute course brings home the personal side of performance improvement. Participants discuss their experiences working in a unit-based team. Using selected People Pulse survey results and learning exercises, this course shows the benefits of UBTs as a business model. Discussions include how engagement in a UBT influences business performance and the work environment. At the end of this session, learners will be equipped and energized to be part of a high-performing team/department.
This 55-minute course builds understanding of KP’s mission and accomplishments. It identifies key events that led Kaiser Permanente to its integrated business model and made us a leader in health care. It also reviews how our Labor Management Partnership has influenced KP’s development and strengthened KP and the unions. At the end of this session, learners will feel proud of their contributions to the health of our communities, and how to be effective ambassadors for KP.
Q: Does my team need to complete all courses to fulfill requirements for business literacy?
A: Business literacy training requirements are determined by each region. For more details, connect with your corresponding unit-based team consultant or your regional LMP training office.
Q: What is the difference between the Business Literacy Series and some existing business literacy modules?
A: Click here for details.
This training prepares new partnering union-represented members to be successful as they work in partnership to provide the best care and service and create KP as the best place to work. It also helps union members understand how the partnership is a union strategy.
Level 1
4 hours
Target attendees are all new partnering union members of Kaiser Permanente.
Labor Management Partnership Orientation (LMPO)
Check out these helpful resources to boost your partnership skills:
This course recognizes emotional intelligence as a key skill to help lead teams through change and improvement. It teaches leaders specific competencies for managing their own emotions and the emotions of others, dealing with difficult conversations and facilitating difficult team issues that come with change.
Level 3, 4, 5
2 hours
This course is intended for unit-based team co-leads and members
