Press Releases: Ohio
June 22, 2006
Charles DeShazer, MD, Joins Kaiser Permanente of Ohio
CLEVELAND – Charles DeShazer, MD, internist and medical informatics specialist, has joined Kaiser Permanente of Ohio as associate medical director for quality, clinical performance improvement and research. In is his new role, Dr. DeShazer is responsible for the direction and content of KP Ohio’s quality programs and the linkage and integration of them with the delivery of primary and specialty care.
Dr. DeShazer’s lengthy title somewhat underscores the breadth and complexity of his assignment: strengthening clinical quality and member service across KP Ohio.
Along with Ruth Langstraat, MD, vice president of health systems design and performance, Dr. DeShazer will head up KP Ohio’s quality improvement initiative. The effort takes its cues in part from “advanced care management,” a strategy that involves using technology to integrate, strengthen, streamline and optimize health care delivery. Such an approach, says Dr. DeShazer, “plays naturally to the strengths of our structurally integrated model, which is physician driven.”
One overarching goal of the quality improvement initiative, says Dr. DeShazer, is boosting KP Ohio’s performance in providing proactive, preventive healthcare, particularly in the areas of breast cancer screening and management of the chronic diseases hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol), hypertension, diabetes and heart disease.
“Our primary objective is to enable our members to thrive, and that means preventing illness and injury, as well as enhancing their wellness and total health,” says Dr. DeShazer.
He also wants to optimize KP’s technical capabilities to help drive the quality initiative. For instance, the investment in KP HealthConnect, Kaiser Permanente’s new electronic medical record system, “can help KP further distinguish itself as an innovator in health care delivery.”
Dr. DeShazer has been with Kaiser Permanente for 15 years, using his expertise in information technology to help improve the way KP delivers care and manages its operations. Prior to joining Kaiser Permanente of Ohio, Dr. DeShazer was vice president and national director, Permanente Business Processes and Computing, Kaiser Permanente Mid-Atlantic Region.
About Kaiser Permanente
Kaiser Permanente is America's leading integrated health plan. Founded in 1945, it is a not-for-profit; group practice prepayment program headquartered in Oakland, Calif. Kaiser Permanente serves the health care needs of more than 8.7 million members in nine states and the District of Columbia. Today it encompasses the not-for-profit Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and their subsidiaries, and the for-profit Permanente Medical Groups. Nationwide, Kaiser Permanente includes approximately 156,000 technical, administrative and clerical employees and caregivers, and more than 13,000 physicians representing all specialties.
In Northeast Ohio, Kaiser Permanente addresses the health care needs of nearly 150,000 members in a nine-county area. Services are provided by more than 180 Ohio Permanente Medical Group physicians, 3,000 network affiliated physicians and more than 1,900 non-physician employees. In 2007, Kaiser Permanente of Ohio celebrated 43 years of providing care in Northeast Ohio.
