This paper examines Kaiser Permanente's organizational statement of purpose, analyzing its mission and values statements in the context of U.S. healthcare affordability and quality challenges. Drawing on foundational management literature, the paper evaluates how Kaiser's mission addresses critical tensions in American healthcare and how its values statement aims to unify organizational culture. The paper then recommends a strategic goal centered on simultaneously reducing costs and improving care quality through approaches such as Six Sigma, and identifies three specific ways Kaiser's Board of Directors can shape policy to drive accountability, operational efficiency, and a culture of continuous improvement.
The mission statement of Kaiser Permanente is to provide affordable, high-quality healthcare services and to improve the health of its members and the communities it serves. The values statement is "to be the model of quality health care in the nation by being the best place to work and the best place to receive care."
The Kaiser Permanente mission statement concentrates on the two most critical characteristics that many Americans face today with regard to healthcare: affordability and quality. Sadly, these two characteristics continue to be inversely correlated in the United States, where the lowest-priced healthcare affordable to the middle class is often the worst in terms of quality. Kaiser's bold mission statement reflects a compelling call to action, urging members to be of greater service to the communities they serve — one of the most valuable aspects of a successful mission statement overall (Collins & Porras, 1996). Great mission statements concentrate on creating a shared sense of urgency and service to others, and rely on values statements to crystallize all organizational elements toward that objective (Stewart, 1996). These two components — affordability and high-quality healthcare — are essential for Kaiser to deliver value to its patients.
The values statement is specifically designed to create a unified organizational culture that serves as a strong catalyst for internal performance and service to external stakeholders. A values statement must seek to unify the many internal processes, programs, people, and resources around the specific expectations and needs of its served customers or constituents (Stewart, 1996). This is precisely what Kaiser attempts to accomplish with the values statement it has created. The focus is on empowering employees to deliver the highest quality healthcare of any provider. Two ways Kaiser can continue to underscore its values are: first, by providing unlimited training reimbursement for employees when the training is directly applicable to their specific roles; and second, by investing in a continual program of customer satisfaction measurement and indexing executive pay to that satisfaction score. By taking these two steps, the organization can further fulfill its values statement and observe a positive impact on performance.
"Cost-quality strategy and three board policy levers"
There are three concrete ways Kaiser's Board of Directors can influence policy in support of this goal. First, the Board should index executive pay to customer or patient satisfaction performance. This will immediately drive greater accountability throughout the organization with regard to the patient experience. Second, a policy shift toward providing bonuses to operations management teams that successfully reduce costs in healthcare delivery will also prove very effective, increasing ownership over performance outcomes. Third, the Kaiser Board of Directors needs to focus on creating a culture of continuous improvement by establishing metrics and analytics that center first on shared information and cross-functional collaboration, and second on individual team performance. By incentivizing collaboration, the overall efficiency of the organization will improve significantly and patient satisfaction will increase as a result.
Collins, J. C., & Porras, J. I. (1996, September). Building your company's vision and mission. Harvard Business Review, 74, 65.
Stewart, T. A. (1996, September 30). A refreshing change: Vision statements that make sense. Fortune, 134, 195.
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