As we recognize National Hospital Week, we honor our people whose expertise, dedication, and compassion elevate our 15 Southern California medical centers into beacons of member care and confidence. We know it’s our people, our culture, and our innovation – consistent hallmarks of KPSC’s excellence – that allow us to bring out our best in the delivery of high-quality, compassionate health care – never more so than during the COVID-19 pandemic. And for that, we are deeply grateful.
We Activate
To prepare for the coronavirus, we adapted based on our experiences and learnings from past pandemics and disasters. We rescheduled elective surgeries, temporarily closed some facilities, and repurposed spaces to make extra room for COVID-19 patients. We helped create new care spaces like the Los Angeles Surge Hospital (LASH), in partnership with the state of California, Los Angeles County, and Dignity Health. In a matter of weeks, we helped stand up a shuttered former hospital so the LASH could treat COVID-19 patients. We’ve established a temporary work from home program so that our people – where and when appropriate – could safely shelter and still help meet the needs of our members and patients. For other employees, we activated a Labor Pool which redeploys them to short-term positions that help to meet our organizational and patient care needs more effectively.
We Innovate
Our hospitals and our people have swiftly innovated and deployed technologies that have forever transformed the course of our health care. In 6 weeks, we moved from 13% virtual care to over 90%, utilizing secure email, chatbots, telemedicine, video visits, and call centers. We initiated popular conveniences like drive-through testing and pharmacy services, while mail-order pharmacy prescription dispensing doubled.
Kaiser Permanente’s robust Research and Evaluation program is also at the forefront of innovative ways to screen, prevent, and treat coronavirus. Right now KPSC is engaged in more than 70 COVID-related research studies, including the Remdesivir clinical trial, which patients like Rich Pickett credit for their recovery.
We Care
We have always been dedicated to assuring that our hospitals are places of safety, comfort, and wellness. During this crisis. KPSC has reached out to members, physicians, and employees regularly to deliver important news and information. The millions of page views and messages validate that just as our hospitals are trusted places for care, so are our online and virtual services trusted sources of expertise, information, and assistance.
Members of our communities must also have access to quality care. To stop the spread of COVID-19, Kaiser Permanente is contributing $1 million to 10 leading public health organizations. This collaboration with CDC Foundation will focus on rapidly sharing new medical evidence and protocols. As part of our Community Health support, Public Health Alliance of Southern California has released an interactive COVID-19 Resource Map to help public health providers deliver resources where they are most needed. We’ve also advanced our community support around mental health, food assistance, and education programs.
But the true demonstration of care comes from our diligent, dedicated people, like Downey Medical Center’s Cecilia Fleming-Tumer, MPH, RN, whose grace and personal reflections touched so many hearts, and Baldwin Park nurse Roberto Ramirez, RN, who said what so many of us feel: “I’ve gotten closer to my patients because they look at me as not just their nurse but their friend. It gives me such joy knowing that these patients, my friends, have made it through the toughest battle they have ever encountered.”
Our outstanding performance during the coronavirus crisis is testimony that the faith our members and patients have placed in us for their health care is well-placed. We have enormous opportunity to apply all that we have learned as we transform our hospitals and care delivery for the future. but we will never stray from our single-minded mission to provide high-quality, compassionate, accessible and affordable health care services and to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve. Today, as every day, we recognize that our mission would be words on a paper if it weren’t for the dedication, caring, kindness, resilience, and heroism of our people.
Stay safe and stay well.
With profound thanks,
Julie and Ed
