Kaiser Permanente Founding & History

1933

Kaiser Permanente's founding physician, Dr. Sidney Garfield, establishes a prepayment health plan for 5000 workers building the Los Angeles Aqueduct in the Mohave Desert. Workers pay about a nickel a day and receive full medical care from Dr. Garfield. He emphasizes prevention, and early treatment to prevent more serious problems later. Dr. Garfield personally pounds down nails to prevent puncture wounds among aqueduct workers.

1938

Henry Kaiser, a successful international contractor based in Oakland, begins planning construction of the Grand Coulee Dam. Kaiser, having heard about the remarkable health care achievements of Sidney Garfield in the Mojave, determines that the prepayment program is exactly what they need for their workers.

Dr. Garfield assumes operation of the Mason City, Washington, hospital at Grand Coulee Dam, providing health care to 15,000 workers and their families.

1940

Work ends at Grand Coulee Dam. Dr. Garfield returns to Los Angeles and the traditional practice of medicine.

As World War II escalates and American involvement increases, Henry Kaiser sees an opportunity to enter into shipbuilding. He begins construction on shipyards and once again calls on Dr. Garfield to care for his workers.

1941

After overcoming the reservations of insurance underwriters unfamiliar with the concept of prepayment, Dr. Garfield comes north to set up a health plan. During World War II, Sidney R. Garfield and Associates provide medical services to the Permanente Foundation hospitals and the health plan as a part of the Kaiser shipbuilding program. At its high point, health plan membership reaches 90,000.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt is as impressed with Henry Kaiser's unique approach to keeping workers healthy as his ability to build ships faster than anybody in history.

1942

The name Permanente is adopted, picked by Henry Kaiser's first wife, Bess, because of her love of Permanente Creek that flows year round on the San Francisco peninsula.

1945

World War II ends and membership drops to 11,000. To replace the lost shipyard workers, Dr. Garfield and his physicians open the health plan to non-Kaiser employees. This marks the true beginning of the Kaiser Permanente system.

1946

With the expansion beyond Kaiser employees, membership in the Permanente Health Plan reaches wartime levels and begins to surpass them. Between 1945 and 1955, membership grows from 14,500 to 301,700.

1948

The Permanente Medical Group (TPMG) is formed as a partnership. The physicians no longer work for Sidney Garfield; they are self-employed. With the nearly simultaneous formation of the nonprofit Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and the Kaiser Foundation, the organization takes on its modern, multi-entity shape.

1951

Following the death of his wife Bess, Henry Kaiser remarries. His bride, Alyce Chester, is a Health Plan nurse who had been an assistant to Sidney Garfield. Now married to a nurse, Henry Kaiser takes an increasing interest in the Health Plan and decides he wants to build a hospital.

1955

The Kaiser Boards of Directors and the Permanente medical come together at Henry Kaiser's home in Lake Tahoe and reach a compromise known as the Tahoe Agreement. This groundbreaking agreement affirms the doctor's primary responsibility in all matters relating to health care.

1958

Spearheaded by Henry Kaiser, Kaiser Permanente expands to Hawaii.

1965

The Permanente School of Nursing becomes the first in California to offer a junior college Associate of Arts degree. The school is responding to a movement within nursing towards classroom, university-based and supervised clinical internships.

President Johnson calls Henry Kaiser “a pioneer of the new breed of responsible businessmen.”

1967

Henry Kaiser dies in Honolulu at age 85, having founded more than 100 companies with assets of $2.5 billion, operating 180 major plants in 32 states and 40 foreign countries, employing 90,000 people and producing 300 products and services.

1970

In an article in Scientific American, Dr. Garfield introduces the concept of "wellness." The concept soon becomes an integral concept in the national health care dialogue.

1971

Nurse practitioners begin working in the Oakland Medical Center. Their success within Kaiser Permanente will encourage the national expansion of the Nurse Practitioner movement.

The Health Plan enrolls one-month-old Kate Hart of Alameda as its one millionth member in the Northern California Region.

1972

The Kaiser Permanente School of Anesthesia for Nurses, the first of its kind in California, opens in Los Angeles and is administered by Southern California Permanente Medical Group. Instruction is provided to RN's by the regional Anesthesia Departments in a two-year academic program.

1973

The Permanente Medical Group allergist Dr. Benjamin Feingold publishes a paper on the relation of food additives to hyperactivity in children. The regimen he prescribes becomes known as "the Kaiser Permanente Diet." His book becomes a national bestseller.

1976

Cecil Cutting, the first Executive Director of The Permanente Medical Group, retires after 19 years. He is succeeded by Bruce Sams.

1980

James Vohs is elected Chairman of Board, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, replacing retiring Edgar Kaiser, son of Henry Kaiser. Vohs is the first Board Chairman who is not a member of the Kaiser family.

1982

On the centennial of his birth, the United States Navy honors Henry Kaiser by naming a class of Navy vessels after him. Kaiser-class ships, also referred to as "filling stations of the sea," these vessels carried oil to be used be other ships.

1984

Sidney Garfield, M.D., dies at age 78. He kept busy up until the end of his life working on his concept of total health care.

1990

In recognition of his efforts to better the lives of millions of American working men and women, Henry J. Kaiser receives the unusual distinction of induction into the U.S. Department of Labor's Hall of Fame along with such great leaders of organized labor as Samuel Gompers, Phillip Randolph, and the legendary Mother Jones.

1994

Oliver Goldsmith, M.D., becomes Medical Director of Southern California Permanente Medical Group.

1999

Robert Pearl, M.D., takes over as The Permanente Medical Group's new Executive Director. Pearl is the fourth in the group's 50-year history.

2000

Health plan membership in Northern California Region reaches the three-million mark; California membership tops six-million.

2002

Northern California Region reduces the incidence of advanced colon cancer by 20 percent, and reduces the death rate from heart disease of KP members by 30% compared with the rest of California's health plan members.

2003

The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCAQ) ranks KP's Cardiovascular program as one of the top five chronic conditions programs in the country.

The World Health Organization (WHO) identifies KP's Chronic Conditions Management Program as a world-wide best practice.

Six independent organizations rate Kaiser Permanente as the health plan that provides the best service and highest quality care in California.