The impact of eHealth on Healthcare Professionals and Organisations: The Impact of ICT at Kaiser Permanente. Wiesenthal A. eHealth week 2010 (Barcelona: CCIB Convention Centre; 2010)

1. The Impact of ICT at Kaiser
Permanente
Andrew M. Wiesenthal, MD, SM
Associate Executive Director
The Permanente Federation

2. What is Kaiser Permanente?
•Nation’s largest
nonprofit health plan
•Integrated health care
delivery system
•8.6 million members
•14,000+ physicians
• 156,000+ employees
•Serving 9 states and the
District of Columbia
•36 hospitals and
medical centers
• Approx. 430 medical
offices
• $40 billion annual
revenues

3. Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect
• Project initiated in February 2003
• Deployment began in December 2003
• Ambulatory deployment completed in April 2008
• Inpatient deployment completed in March 2010
• KP is essentially paperless across the
continuum
• Standards-based
• HL7, SNOMED-CT, LOINC, RxNORM, DICOM, etc.

4. Everything is Changing
• Relationship between professionals and
members is altered
• 3.5 million (and growing) use portal
• Labs, messaging, appointments, questionnaires, decision
support
• Relationships among professionals is altered
• Team care includes everyone (MDs, nurses,
pharmacists, receptionists
• Consultations are real-time
• No clinical decisions are made without data

5. Tantalizing Examples
• Pharmacists care for diabetics
• Receptionists order mammograms
• Nephrologist prevents dialysis
• Colon cancer screening by mail
• One third of touches are secure messages
• Hospitals are built without record rooms
• Real time health information exchange with the
Veterans Administration system