Kaiser Permanente Rated Highest Again on California's Annual Clinical Quality Report Card

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Jan 28, 2014, 02:15 ET

OAKLAND, Calif., Jan. 28, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- For the sixth consecutive year, Kaiser Permanente is the only health plan in California to earn a 4-star rating — the highest possible — for overall quality of care in the annual Healthcare Quality Report Card from the California Office of the Patient Advocate.

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Kaiser Permanente in both Northern and Southern California also received 4 stars in the "Patients Rate their HMO" category, which measures members' satisfaction with their total care and service.

"These ratings again demonstrate the outstanding care and service that our health plans provide," said Jed Weissberg, MD, senior vice president, Hospitals, Quality and Care Delivery Excellence, Kaiser Permanente. "Our consistently excellent performance reflects our highly skilled physicians, nurses and care teams and their dedication to helping our members get healthy and stay healthy. Delivering affordable, high-quality health care to our members and patients is our mission. It's what we strive to do every day."

The annual report card (opa.ca.gov/report_card) provides California consumers with side-by-side comparisons of the largest health plans in the state (10 HMOs and six PPOs), ranking them on several national "quality of care" and "member care experience" measures.

Since 2012, the National Committee for Quality Assurance, the premier organization measuring the performance of health-care providers in the United States, has been a partner with the OPA in developing the annual report card in California.

The 2014 OPA ratings follow several other recent honors received by Kaiser Permanente:

Kaiser Permanente's Medicare plans in California received a 5-star rating for 2014, the only health plan in the state to get the top rating and one of only 11 plans in the nation to get a 5-star rating from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. It was the third straight year Kaiser Permanente in California has received 5 stars.
Kaiser Permanente was rated by the National Committee for Quality Assurance as having the top five Medicare health plans in the nation. The five health plans have a total membership of more than 8.2 million.
Nineteen Kaiser Permanente hospitals in Northern California and Southern California were named "Top Hospitals" in 2013 by The Leapfrog Group. Only 23 urban hospitals in California — out of more than 160 surveyed — received this honor.
All Kaiser Permanente hospitals in California that were included in the report received "A" grades in The Leapfrog Group's 2013 Hospital Safety Scores.
Twenty-seven Kaiser Permanente hospitals in California were ranked as Top Performers in 2013 by The Joint Commission.

About Kaiser Permanente

Kaiser Permanente is committed to helping shape the future of health care. We are recognized as one of America's leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans. Founded in 1945, our mission is to provide high-quality, affordable health care services and to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve. We currently serve 9.1 million members in eight states and the District of Columbia. Care for members and patients is focused on their total health and guided by their personal physicians, specialists and team of caregivers. Our expert and caring medical teams are empowered and supported by industry-leading technology advances and tools for health promotion, disease prevention, state-of-the-art care delivery and world-class chronic disease management. Kaiser Permanente is dedicated to care innovations, clinical research, health education and the support of community health. For more information, go to kp.org/share.

Contact: Mark Camps, 510-625-5624, 510-529-1854 (mobile); [email protected]

SOURCE Kaiser Permanente