Kaiser permanente healthconnect

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Kaiser's bias toward prevention is reflected in the areas of interest—vaccine and genetic studies are prominent. The work is funded primarily by federal, state, and other outside non-Kaiser institutions. Kaiser has created and operates a voluntary biobank of donated blood samples from members along with their medical record and the responses to a lifestyle and health survey.

De-identified data is shared with both Kaiser researchers and researchers from other institutions. Kaiser Permanente announced its plan to start a medical school in December, , and the school welcomed its inaugural class in June, The Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. The school will waive all tuition for the full four years of medical school for its first five classes.

In order to contain costs, Kaiser requires an agreement by planholders to submit patient malpractice claims to arbitration rather than litigating through the court system. This has triggered some opposition. Wilfredo Engalla is a notable case. In , Engalla died of lung cancer nearly five months after submitting a written demand for arbitration.

Watchdogs have accused Kaiser of abusing the power imbalance inherent in the arbitration system. Kaiser engages in many cases whereas a customer will usually engage in just one and Kaiser can reject any arbitrator unilaterally, thus they can select company-friendly arbitrators over those that rule in favor of customers. As a large organization, Kaiser can also afford to spend much more on lawyers and orators than the customer, giving them more advantages.

The degree to which this office is actually independent has been questioned. Patients and consumer interest groups sporadically attempt to bring lawsuits against Kaiser Permanente. Recent lawsuits include Gary Rushford's attempt to use proof of a physician lie to overturn an arbitration decision.

In one case, Kaiser attempted to significantly expand the scope of its arbitration agreements by arguing it should be able to force nonsignatories to its member contracts into arbitration, merely because those third parties had allegedly caused an injury to a Kaiser member which Kaiser had then allegedly exacerbated through its medical malpractice. The California Court of Appeal for the First District did not accept that argument: "Absent a written agreement—or a preexisting relationship or authority to contract for another that might substitute for an arbitration agreement—courts sitting in equity may not compel third party nonsignatories to arbitrate their disputes.

While Doctors of Medicine M. KP's California operations were the target of four labor strikes in and — two September , January involved more than 20, nurses, mental health providers, and other professionals. The workers were dissatisfied with proposed changes to pensions and other benefits.

On November 11, , up to 18, nurses went on strike at KP hospitals in Northern California over Ebola safeguards and patient-care standards during union contract talks. Jamie Court, president of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights has said that Kaiser's retained profits are evidence that Kaiser policies are overpriced and that health insurance regulation is needed.

State insurance regulations require that insurers maintain certain minimum amounts of cash reserves to ensure that they are able to meet their obligations; the amount varies by insurer, based on its risk factors, such as its investments, how many people it insures, and other factors; a few states also have caps on how large the reserves can be.

Kaiser has been criticized by activists and state regulators for the size of its cash reserves. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. American integrated managed care company.

Headquarters the Ordway Building in downtown Oakland. Net income. Main article: Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine. Kaiser Permanente. Archived from the original on April 16, Retrieved August 2, Retrieved October 10, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan. Retrieved November 17, Lawrence, M.

San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved January 22, Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on June 9, Retrieved May 1, The New York Times.

November 11, Retrieved December 31, Retrieved October 15, Retrieved February 9, July 31, Retrieved August 28, November 22, Delaware business entity number The entity is registered with the California Secretary of State.

Retrieved February 4, Fall Permanente Journal. Kaiser Permanente Ventures. Archived from the original on January 29, ISBN Reader's Digest. The Reader's Digest Association. Retrieved June 17, December Milbank Quarterly. PMC PMID In The Northeast".

Crain's Cleveland Business. San Francisco Business Times. Healthcare IT News. January 19, British Medical Journal. BBC News. January 17, The British Journal of General Practice. ISSN California Office of the Patient Advocate. The Economist. July 15, Retrieved March 22, Craft for the Sacramento Bee. All Things Considered.

Retrieved January 23, ABC News. Archived from the original on October 24, NBC News. Associated Press. October 22, Retrieved November 8, Kaiser Permanente Research Bank. Kaiser Health News. Retrieved January 3, Tyson School of Medicine". Permanente Medicine. February 19, Permanente Medical Group, Inc. April 26, January 8, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. The Press Democrat. Roseville Press-Tribune.

January 31, NBC Bay Area. August 4, March 13, Oakland, California. Port of Oakland List of companies. Elizabeth High School. Trauma centers in California. Francis Medical Center St. Elizabeth Community Hospital. Sidney Garfield Henry J. Henry J. Edgar Kaiser Jr. Edgar Kaiser Sr. Henry Kaiser musician. Authority control. Israel United States. Namespaces Article Talk. Views Read Edit View history. Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file.

Download as PDF Printable version. Wikimedia Commons. Consortium of for-profit and not-for-profit entities. July 21, ; 77 years ago Health IT can support the practice of high-quality evidence-based medicine, as well as continuous learnings and improvement based on ongoing experience.

Information and data strategies such as those developed by KP through its patient registries, research, and Web-based tools can aid in efforts to transform care delivery nationwide. Perm J. Benjamin Wheatley. Author information Copyright and License information Disclaimer. E-mail: gro. Abstract The slow but progressive adoption of health information technology IT nationwide promises to usher in a new era in health care.

Historical Overview For most of US history, medical care has been carried out by physicians in solo practice relying on paper-based record keeping.

Advancing Health Information Technology In addition to providing a complete patient record at the point of care, health IT provides a mechanism for promoting greater reliability in care quality.

Three Steps in Care Transformation A central aim of the federal government in promoting EHRs nationwide is to establish greater connectivity across care providers. Health IT makes accurate, complete, and up-to-date patient information more accessible to clinicians at the point of care.

Additionally, electronic data systems have the potential to improve provider communication, establish better care coordination, and ensure more successful patient transitions. Better clinical guidance. In areas where there is consensus regarding optimally effective care, health IT can aid in disseminating known best practices. Through the use of clinical decision-support tools, alerts, or other communication devices, health IT can enhance efforts to reduce gaps in care.

This guidance helps ensure reliability in delivering high-quality evidence-based care and can reduce unwarranted variation in practice. Continuous learning and improvement. In areas where there are gaps in the knowledge base, or a lack of consensus regarding appropriate treatment protocols, health IT has the potential to support continuous learning and care improvement.

Electronic data systems can link treatment selection with observed patient outcomes, providing feedback for clinicians. These results can promote greater consensus about appropriate care standards. Accessible Patient Information EHRs support clinical quality in the US by helping to ensure that all the information that is known about a patient is available at the time of the clinical encounter. Continuous Learning and Improvement In other clinical areas, there may be much less consensus on appropriate care protocols.

Tracking Surgical Outcomes For many years KP has employed registries to assist in tracking groups of patients who have specific conditions, or who have undergone specific procedures. Assessing Treatment Alternatives In a study appearing in the journal Ophthalmology in , KP researchers were able to demonstrate that two drugs used to treat age-related macular degeneration AMD were equally effective in halting and reversing vision loss. Developing Treatment Protocols In the current environment, deriving clear evidence-based treatment recommendations from the literature can be a complex undertaking.

For example, the authors of a systematic review of studies examining treatments for rotator cuff injury make the following observations: 45 The lack of consistency and precision of results across the studies was primarily due to varied comparisons … relatively few studies compared the same interventions. Conclusion Health IT has been called a necessary but insufficient step in care transformation.

Disclosure Statement The author s have no conflicts of interest to disclose. References 1. Liang LL, editor. Connected for health: using electronic health records to transform care delivery. Unitan R. Aug 31, [cited Aug 16]. Available from: www. Emont S. Measuring the impact of patient portals: what the literature tells us [monograph on the Internet] Oakland, CA: California Healthcare Foundation; May, The healthcare imperative: lowering costs and improving outcomes: workshop series summary.

Growth and decentralization of the medical literature: implications for evidence-based medicine. J Med Libr Assoc. Clinical practice guidelines we can trust.

National Guideline Clear-inghouse; updated Nov 5 [cited Nov 11]. Wennberg JE. Dealing with medical practice variations: a proposal for action. Health Aff Millwood Summer; 3 2 :6— Wennberg JE, Gittelsohn A.

Small area variations in health care delivery. Jun 15, [cited Aug 17]. The quality of health care delivered to adults in the United States. N Engl J Med. Evidence on the costs and benefits of health information technology [monograph on the Internet] Washington, DC: Congressional Budget Office; May, [cited Nov 11].

Aug 2, [cited Aug 17]. Part II. Medical and Medicaid programs; electronic health record incentive program. Final rule: 42 CFR Parts , , , Federal Register [serial on the Internet] Jul 28 [cited Nov 11];75 Part III: Health information technology: initial set of standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria for electronic health record technology.

Final rule: 45 CFR Part Federal Register [serial on the Internet] Jul 28 [cited Nov 11]; Medicare and Medicaid programs: Electronic health record incentive program—stage 2; health information technology: standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria for electronic health record technology, edition. Revisions to the permanent certification program for health information technology. Federal Register [serial on the Internet] Sep 4 [cited Nov 11]; Blumenthal D, Tavenner M.

Mar, [cited Nov 9]. Versel N. Meaningful use stage 3 emphasizes better decision support. Information Week [serial on the Internet] Aug 6 [cited Nov 9]: [about 2 screens]. Garrido T, Chase A. Making it matter: value and quality. In: Liang LL, editor. Pearl R. Feb 25, [cited Nov 9]. May 23, [cited Aug 17]. Winslow R. May 31, [cited Aug 17]. Nov 4, [cited Nov 9]. Osteoporosis disease management: the role of the orthopaedic surgeon. J Bone Joint Surg Am. Osteoporosis disease management: what every orthopaedic surgeon should know.

Bundling two generic low-cost heart drugs prevents heart attack and stroke in large, diverse population, observational clinical study shows [press release on the Internet]. PR Newswire; Oct 1. Preventing myocardial infarction and stroke with a simplified bundle of cardioprotective medications.

Am J Manag Care. Effect of a patient panel-support tool on care delivery. Institute of Medicine. The learning health system series. Apr, [cited Aug 17]. Clin Orthop Relat Res.

Case study: total joint replacement registry: data improves outcomes. Oakland, CA: Kaiser Permanente; Jul, [cited Jul 27]. The Kaiser Permanente implant registries: effect on patient safety, quality improvement, cost effectiveness, and research opportunities.

Intravitreal bevacizumab and ranibizumab for age-related macular degeneration: a multicenter, retrospective study. Adams B. May 4, [cited Aug 17]. Systematic review: nonoperative and operative treatments for rotator cuff tears. Ann Intern Med. Comparative effectiveness of interventions for rotator cuff tears in adults [monograph on the Internet] Rockville, MD: Agency for Health Care Research and Quality; Oct 29, [cited Aug 17]. The paradox of appropriate care.

Halvorson G. The digital transformation of health care. The benefits of health information technology: a review of the recent literature shows predominantly positive results.

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In , only 9 percent of America's hospitals were using even a basic form of electronic health records. Fasano has led Kaiser's year effort to build KP HealthConnect, an electronic health records EHR system that stretches across every department and every Kaiser patient. It is an impressive book and worth reading as the country struggles to implement health care reform. After reading it, I had the chance to interview Fasano. Here's a slightly condensed and edited version of our conversation.

What can Kaiser do with it now that wouldn't be possible without it? Philip Fasano: We have every piece of information about that patient available to us to draw upon.

The primary care physician has all the information about the patient, the specialists have all the information about the patient, and anyone they encounter in any of our hospitals has it as well. He or she can see the patient's health history, diagnosis by other providers, lab results, and prescriptions are all there. X-rays are stored digitally and are there. That information is also available if a patient goes to the ER. You have to invest continuously in the infrastructure over its lifetime.

People have to recognize that these systems are life-critical once implemented, so you have to invest in the infrastructure to be sure they are always on. At the time, I said, "That's a nice down payment. In addition to the regional entities, in , the then-twelve Permanente Medical Groups created The Permanente Federation LLC , a separate entity, which focuses on standardizing patient care and performance under one name and system of policies.

A mutual benefit corporation named "Kaiser Foundation for the Advancement of Integrated Health Care" was established on December 27, The specific purpose of the corporation is "to advocate for and promote the integrated models of health care".

The history of Kaiser Permanente dates to and a tiny hospital in the town of Desert Center, California. At that time, Henry J. Kaiser and several other large construction contractors had formed an insurance consortium called Industrial Indemnity to meet their workers' compensation obligations.

Soon enough, Garfield's new hospital was in a precarious financial state with mounting debt and the staff of three going unpaid , due in part to Garfield's desire to treat all patients regardless of ability to pay, as well as his insistence on equipping the hospital adequately so that critically injured patients could be stabilized for the long journey to full-service hospitals in Los Angeles.

It was Hatch who proposed to Garfield the specific solution that would lead to the creation of Kaiser Permanente: Industrial Indemnity would prepay Later, Garfield also credited Ordway with coming up with the general idea of prepayment for industrial health care and explained that he did not know much at the time about other similar health plans except for the Ross-Loos Medical Group. Hatch's solution enabled Garfield to bring his budget back into the positive, and to experiment with providing a broader range of services to the workers besides pure emergency care.

However, in March , Consolidated Industries a consortium led by the Kaiser Company initiated work on a contract for the upper half of the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington state, and took over responsibility for the thousands of workers who had worked for a different construction consortium on the first half of the dam. Edgar Kaiser, Henry's son, was in charge of the project. To smooth over relations with the workers who had been treated poorly by their earlier employer , Hatch and Ordway persuaded Edgar to meet with Garfield, and in turn Edgar persuaded Garfield to tour the Grand Coulee site.

Garfield subsequently agreed to reproduce at Grand Coulee Dam what he had done on the Colorado River Aqueduct project. Unlike the workers on Garfield's first project, many workers at Grand Coulee Dam had brought dependents with them. The unions soon forced the Kaiser Company to expand its plan to cover dependents, which resulted in a dramatic shift from industrial medicine into family practice and enabled Garfield to formulate some of the basic principles of Kaiser Permanente.

It was also during this time that Henry Kaiser personally became acquainted with Garfield and forged a friendship which lasted until Kaiser's death. In , the Kaiser Company began work on several huge shipbuilding contracts in Oakland, and by the end of would control four major shipyards on the West Coast.

During , the expansion of the American defense-industrial complex in preparation for entrance into World War II resulted in a massive increase in the number of employees at the Richmond shipyard.

On March 1, , Sidney R. In July, the Permanente Foundation formed to operate Northern California hospitals that would be linked to the outpatient health plans , followed shortly thereafter by the creation of Northern Permanente Foundation for Oregon and Washington and Southern Permanente Foundation for California. Kaiser's first wife, Bess Fosburgh, liked the name.

An abandoned Oakland facility was modernized as the bed Permanente Hospital opened on August 1, this facility evolved over the decades into today's flagship Kaiser Oakland Medical Center.

Three weeks later, the bed Richmond Field Hospital opened. Six first aid stations were set up in the shipyards to treat industrial accidents and minor illness.

Each first aid station had an ambulance ready to rush patients to the surgical field hospital if required. Stabilized patients could be moved to the larger hospital for recuperative care. These physicians established California Physicians Service to offer similar health coverage to the families of shipyard workers. Meanwhile, during the war years, the American Medical Association AMA which opposed managed care organizations from their very beginning tried to defuse demand for managed care by promoting the rapid expansion of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield preferred provider organization networks.

In , Henry J. Kaiser and Dr. Sidney R. In , the Kaiser Permanente health plan was opened to the public. In , Kaiser established the Henry J. Membership bottomed out at 17, for the entire system but then surged back to 26, within six months as Garfield aggressively marketed his plan to the public. During this period, a substantial amount of growth came from union members; the unions saw Kaiser Permanente care as more affordable and comprehensive than what was available at the time from private physicians under the fee-for-service system.

Kaiser Permanente membership soared to , in , , in , , in , , in , and , in From onward, both Kaiser Permanente and Garfield fought numerous attacks from the AMA and various state and local medical societies. Henry Kaiser came to the defense of both Garfield and the health plans he had created. In , the organization acquired its current name when Henry Kaiser unilaterally directed the trustees of the health plans, hospital foundations, and medical groups to add his name before Permanente.

That same year, Kaiser Permanente also began experiments with large-scale multiphasic screening to identify unknown conditions and to facilitate treatment of known ones. Henry Kaiser became fascinated with the health care system created for him by Garfield and began to directly manage Kaiser Permanente and Garfield. This resulted in a financial disaster when Kaiser splurged on the new Walnut Creek hospital; his constant intermeddling led to significant friction at every level of the organization.

The situation was not helped by Kaiser's marriage to Garfield's head administrative nurse who had helped care for Kaiser's first wife on her deathbed , convincing Garfield to marry the sister of that nurse, and then having Garfield move in next door to him. Clifford Keene who would eventually serve as president of Kaiser Permanente later recalled that this arrangement resulted in a rather dysfunctional and combative family in charge of Kaiser Permanente.

Keene was an experienced Permanente physician whom Garfield had personally hired in During he had been trying to get a job at U. Steel , but on the morning of December 5, , with internal tensions worsening day by day, Garfield met with Keene at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco and asked him to turn around the organization.

It took Keene 15 years to realize that Kaiser had forced Garfield to ask Keene to become his replacement. Due to the chaos on the board, Keene at first took control with the vague title of Executive Associate, but it soon became clear to everyone that he was actually in charge and Garfield was to become a lobbyist and "ambassador" for the HMO concept.

However, even with Garfield relieved of day-to-day management duties, the underlying problem of Henry Kaiser's authoritarian management style continued to persist. After several tense confrontations between Kaiser and Permanente Medical Group physicians, the doctors met with Kaiser's top adviser, Eugene Trefethen, at Kaiser's personal estate near Lake Tahoe on July 12, Trefethen came up with the idea of a contract between the medical groups and the health plans and hospital foundations that would set out roles, responsibilities, and financial distribution.

While Keene and Trefethen struggled to fix the damage from Kaiser's micromanagement and Garfield's ineffectual management, Henry Kaiser moved to Oahu in and insisted on expanding Kaiser Permanente into Hawaii in He quickly ruined what should have been a simple project, and only a last-minute intervention by Keene and Trefethen in August prevented the total disintegration of the Hawaii organization.

Having overseen Kaiser Permanente's successful transformation from Henry Kaiser's health care experiment into a large-scale self-sustaining enterprise, Keene retired in In , all six of Kaiser Permanente's regions had become federally qualified health maintenance organizations.

In , Kaiser acquired a nonprofit group practice to create its Mid-Atlantic region, encompassing the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. In , Kaiser Permanente expanded to Georgia. By , Kaiser Permanente provided coverage for about a third of the population of the cities of San Francisco and Oakland; total Northern California membership was over 2. Elsewhere, Kaiser Permanente did not do as well, and its geographic footprint changed significantly in the s. The organization spun off or closed outposts in Texas , North Carolina , and the Northeast.

In , Kaiser Permanente sold its Texas operations, where reported problems had become so severe that the organization directed its lawyers to attempt to block the release of a Texas Department of Insurance report. This prompted the state attorney general to threaten to revoke the organization's license. The organization also sold its unprofitable Northeast division in The Ohio division was sold to Catholic Health Partners in In , Kaiser Permanente celebrated its fiftieth anniversary as a public health plan.

Two years later, national membership reached nine million. In , the organization established an agreement with the AFL-CIO to explore a new approach to the relationship between management and labor , known as the Labor Management Partnership.

Going into the new millennium, competition in the managed care market increased dramatically, raising new concerns. The Southern California Permanente Medical Group saw declining rates of new members as other managed care groups flourished.

This information technology failure led to major changes in the organization's approach to digital records. Under George Halvorson's direction, Kaiser looked closely at two medical software vendors, Cerner and Epic Systems , ultimately selecting Epic as the primary vendor for a new system, branded KP HealthConnect. Although Kaiser's approach shifted to "buy, not build," the project was unprecedented for a civilian system in size and scope. Early in the 21st century, the NHS and UK Department of Health became impressed with some aspects of the Kaiser operation and initiated a series of studies involving several health care organizations in England.

The management of hospital bed-occupancy by KP, by means of integrated management in and out of hospital and monitoring progress against care pathways has given rise to trials of similar techniques in eight areas of the UK. In , a controversial study by California-based academics published in the British Medical Journal compared Kaiser to the British National Health Service , finding Kaiser to be superior in several respects.

Second, its doctors are salaried rather than paid per service, which removes the main incentive for doctors to perform unnecessary procedures. Thirdly, KP attempts to minimize the time patients spend in high-cost hospitals by carefully planning their stay and by shifting care to outpatient clinics.

This practice results in lower costs per member, cost savings for KP and greater doctor attention to patients. Alleged violations of California's timely access laws included failures to accurately track wait times and track doctor availability amid evidence of inconsistent electronic and paper records. It was also found by the DMHC that patients received written materials circulated by Kaiser dissuading them from seeking care, a violation of state and federal laws. DMHC also issued a cease and desist order for Kaiser to end the practices.

The report found Kaiser had put systems in place to better track how patients were being cared for but still had not addressed problems with actually providing mental health care that complied with state and federal laws. It also issued a statement which denied much of the wrongdoing. In Kaiser settled five cases for alleged patient dumping —the delivery of homeless hospitalized patients to other agencies or organizations in order to avoid expensive medical care—between and Los Angeles city officials had filed civil and criminal legal action against Kaiser Permanente for patient dumping, which was the first action of its kind that the city had taken.

At the time that the complaint was filed, city officials said that 10 other hospitals were under investigation for similar issues. In , Northern California Kaiser Permanente initiated an in-house program for kidney transplantation. Upon opening the transplant center, Kaiser required that members who are transplant candidates in Northern California obtain services exclusively through its internal KP-owned transplant center.

However, patients who needed a kidney were less likely to be offered one. At other California transplant centers, more than twice as many people received kidneys than died during the same period.

Unlike other centers, the Kaiser program did not perform riskier transplants or use donated organs from elderly or other higher-risk people, which have worse outcomes. Northern California Kaiser closed the kidney transplant program in May As before, Northern California Kaiser now pays for pre-transplant care and transplants at other hospitals.

This change affected approximately 2, patients. Kaiser operates a Division of Research, which annually conducts between and studies, and the Center for Health Research, which in had more than active studies. Kaiser's bias toward prevention is reflected in the areas of interest—vaccine and genetic studies are prominent.

The work is funded primarily by federal, state, and other outside non-Kaiser institutions. Kaiser has created and operates a voluntary biobank of donated blood samples from members along with their medical record and the responses to a lifestyle and health survey. De-identified data is shared with both Kaiser researchers and researchers from other institutions. Kaiser Permanente announced its plan to start a medical school in December, , and the school welcomed its inaugural class in June, The Kaiser Permanente Bernard J.

The school will waive all tuition for the full four years of medical school for its first five classes. In order to contain costs, Kaiser requires an agreement by planholders to submit patient malpractice claims to arbitration rather than litigating through the court system.

This has triggered some opposition. Wilfredo Engalla is a notable case. In , Engalla died of lung cancer nearly five months after submitting a written demand for arbitration. Watchdogs have accused Kaiser of abusing the power imbalance inherent in the arbitration system.

Kaiser engages in many cases whereas a customer will usually engage in just one and Kaiser can reject any arbitrator unilaterally, thus they can select company-friendly arbitrators over those that rule in favor of customers.

As a large organization, Kaiser can also afford to spend much more on lawyers and orators than the customer, giving them more advantages. The degree to which this office is actually independent has been questioned. Patients and consumer interest groups sporadically attempt to bring lawsuits against Kaiser Permanente. Recent lawsuits include Gary Rushford's attempt to use proof of a physician lie to overturn an arbitration decision.

In one case, Kaiser attempted to significantly expand the scope of its arbitration agreements by arguing it should be able to force nonsignatories to its member contracts into arbitration, merely because those third parties had allegedly caused an injury to a Kaiser member which Kaiser had then allegedly exacerbated through its medical malpractice.

The California Court of Appeal for the First District did not accept that argument: "Absent a written agreement—or a preexisting relationship or authority to contract for another that might substitute for an arbitration agreement—courts sitting in equity may not compel third party nonsignatories to arbitrate their disputes. While Doctors of Medicine M. KP's California operations were the target of four labor strikes in and — two September , January involved more than 20, nurses, mental health providers, and other professionals.

The workers were dissatisfied with proposed changes to pensions and other benefits. On November 11, , up to 18, nurses went on strike at KP hospitals in Northern California over Ebola safeguards and patient-care standards during union contract talks.

Jamie Court, president of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights has said that Kaiser's retained profits are evidence that Kaiser policies are overpriced and that health insurance regulation is needed. State insurance regulations require that insurers maintain certain minimum amounts of cash reserves to ensure that they are able to meet their obligations; the amount varies by insurer, based on its risk factors, such as its investments, how many people it insures, and other factors; a few states also have caps on how large the reserves can be.

Kaiser has been criticized by activists and state regulators for the size of its cash reserves. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. American integrated managed care company. Headquarters the Ordway Building in downtown Oakland.