Our Point of View

May 7, 2007

KP HealthConnect™ in the Wall Street Journal

Oakland, Calif. — Editions of the Wall Street Journal on April 24 included an article about KP HealthConnect™ and a former Southern California Permanente Medical Group employee who sent an email to KP employees last November. As George Halvorson, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan/Hospitals' Chairman and CEO, said about the email at the time, "The email is an unfortunate combination of partial facts, old data, incomplete data, 'conspiracy' thinking, and naivete." This is in relation to both the implementation of KP HealthConnect™ and KP's financial performance.

Over the last five months since that email was written, KP HealthConnect™ has continued to expand and reach new milestones. On a daily basis, we are seeing evidence of how it is improving our care and service quality, as well as providing new access and convenience for our members. For example, more than 95 percent of KP's members have access to portions of their KP HealthConnect™ record via kp.org, including the ability to securely e-mail their doctors and view most lab test results online.

The value and merit of the various KP systems and strategies will be validated by time and actual performance.

More details are available on our KP HealthConnect™ page.