Owning Our Own Health--Modeling Healthy Living

Kaiser Permanente (KP) exists to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve. When Henry Kaiser and Sidney Garfield, MD, first designed the concept that later became KP, our first members were workers in the Mojave Desert, building the California Aqueduct, and the community became their families. After that came the shipyard workers and their families in California and Oregon. Caring for all of those members and communities required a larger and larger group of dedicated employees and physicians. Now, KP employs nearly 140,000 people across the country, all striving to deliver on that same promise. In fact, because of our success and growth, we—the people of KP—are one of the largest blocks of members and one of the largest communities we serve. So, what about us, how are we doing with improving the health of our own KP community?