Our Point of View

February 15 2007

A Message from Executive Sponsors for Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect™

Oakland, Calif.—Today, a story in The Los Angeles Times mischaracterized the status of the KP HealthConnect™ project. Since December 2006, the reporter has spoken with each of us, KP members and physicians, was taken on a site visit to witness first hand our complete deployment in Baldwin Park, and talked with numerous experts both inside and outside of our organization about KP HealthConnect™. Unfortunately, the countless positive stories shared with the reporter are not reflected in his article.

We are certainly disappointed by the overall tone of today's article, but we are confident that it does not alter any of the tremendous progress we are making. We are very proud of our groundbreaking work and know that we are transforming the way we deliver care. Over the past three years, KP HealthConnect™ has become a fact of life for our physicians, clinicians, staff and members. 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.

It is alarming to us that the reporter would suggest that KP HealthConnect™ has created potential harm to our patients when we know that we have built in processes, procedures and redundancies to protect patients under all circumstances. Not only do we think we are doing the right thing, but we are rigorously evaluating the efforts and data are showing that, unequivocally, we are doing the right thing.

A project of this size and scope is expected to experience a fair share of challenges. It is how an organization responds to these challenges that determines success. We are very pleased to say that our organization has a strong track record for being quick to address issues and make necessary changes or improvements, while always keeping patient safety and quality of care top priority. While we will continue to face challenges, we have no doubt that our dedicated and capable regional and national teams, and all of our caregivers will continue to meet these challenges head-on and resolve them quickly and successfully. The work we are doing is moving our organization into the 21st Century, setting the standard for health care delivery worldwide.

-Louise Liang, MD and Andy Wiesenthal, MD, SM