Kaiser News

Kaiser Permanente will host its 2009 National Diversity Conference Nov. 4-6 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Hundreds of the organization's senior executives, physicians and employees from across the country will convene for the annual diversity learning forum, which will feature some of the nation's foremost authorities on culturally competent care, linguistic services, workforce diversity, and diversity business strategies.

From birth, children breathe more air, drink more water and eat more food per pound of body weight than adults. Since they’re taking in more of everything, there’s more potential for exposure to potentially harmful chemicals. This new, interactive brochure offers offers tips for how parents can 'green' their nursery and household.

The UCLA School of Public Health has received a $5.2 million gift from Kaiser Permanente to endow the UCLA Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity. The center, formerly known as the Center to Eliminate Health Disparities, is dedicated to improving the health of underserved populations through research, community collaboration and leadership development.

Halvorson joined members of Congress and health care leaders at the magazine's Oct. 27 event, titled 'Health Care Reform: Will it Work?' The director of the White House Office of Health Reform, Nancy-Ann DeParle, also presented at the event.

Kaiser Permanente, one of America's leading health care providers and nonprofit health plans, announced today that it has approved $19 million in grants and donations to 465 nonprofit organizations nationwide in the third quarter of 2009. The health care organization's grants this quarter focused on improving the quality of care in public hospitals and community clinics, creating respite care programs for the homeless, providing communities with access to healthy foods during hard economic times, and awarding scholarships to children interested in careers in health care.

Obese women who gain more than the recommended amount during pregnancy are much more likely to retain a portion of that weight one year after they give birth, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published in the November issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

More than half of women in the United States are overweight or obese when they become pregnant, and most go on to gain more than the recommended amount during pregnancy. To reduce this number, and the complications that come with it, Kaiser Permanente is launching the first clinical trial to help obese women control their weight during pregnancy. The 'Healthy Moms' study, funded by a $2.2 million grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, will begin recruiting this month.

Medicaid beneficiaries with disabilities frequently have multiple chronic conditions, and very high rates of psychiatric illness and cardiovascular disease, according to a study released today by the Center for Health Care Strategies. The study was funded through a grant from Kaiser Permanente. As national policymakers debate health reform, the study provides insights for targeting efforts to improve care and control spending for Medicaid's highest-need, highest-cost beneficiaries.

Kaiser Permanente and Avivia Health co-sponsored a plenary session Wednesday at the National Business Group on Health's 23rd National Conference on Health, Productivity and Human Capital, highlighting effective strategies employers can use to promote a healthy workforce. One of Kaiser Permanente's speakers at the event, Paul Wallace, MD, recorded remarks on YouTube that you can view in this press release.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services presented awards on Sept. 30 to two Kaiser Permanente hospitals, Kaiser Permanente Redwood City Medical Center and Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center, for their success in increasing the number of organs available for transplantation.

Kaiser Permanente has been awarded the prestigious 'Recognizing Innovation in Multicultural Health Care Award' by the National Committee for Quality Assurance for efforts to reach across cultural and language barriers to provide health plan members with care that meets their unique needs.

As part of the $5 billion in grants announced by President Obama, the National Institutes of Health has granted Kaiser Permanente more than $54 million over two years through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to conduct health research on a multitude of critical public and clinical health areas. The bulk of this research will utilize and leverage Kaiser Permanente's electronic health records, the world’s largest civilian electronic health record database.

The Kaiser Permanente Research Program on Genes, Environment, and Health and the University of California, San Francisco have been awarded $24.8 million over two years by the National Institutes of Health to create a new resource for studying disease, health, and aging. With this support, Kaiser Permanente's RPGEH and UCSF will conduct a genome-wide analysis of DNA samples from 100,000 Kaiser Permanente members from Northern California who have volunteered to join the RPGEH.

Kaiser Permanente Hawaii leads the nation in mammography screenings, according to the National Committee on Quality Assurance's (NCQA) Quality Compass® report for 2009. The data provided by the private, non-profit organization dedicated to improving health care quality, found that among all reporting health plans across the nation, Kaiser Permanente in Hawaii has the highest breast cancer screening rate for women age 42 to 69.

Kaiser Permanente leads the nation among all reporting health plans with top marks in eight quality measures. These conclusions were based on information in the 2009 National Committee for Quality Assurance's Quality Compass® data.

Kaiser Permanente and Brigid McCaw, MD, have received a 'Heroes in Health Care' award for creating and implementing an innovative and comprehensive approach to domestic violence prevention. Dr. McCaw, medical director, Family Violence Prevention Program, Kaiser Permanente Northern California, will accept the award Oct. 10 from the Family Violence Prevention Fund at the organization's National Conference on Health and Domestic Violence in New Orleans.