Actions We Are Taking

Health Plan and Hospital Leadership has identified a series of actions that will be implemented effective immediately to ensure that we remain on sound economic footing while continuing to give high-quality care and service to our members.  We must intensify our efforts to leverage best practices in managing care across the Program.
These actions will complement region-specific and local actions that are in progress or will be implemented in the near future.
·         We will freeze 2009 salaries for all Health Plan and Hospital executives (Top 500, level D and above).
·         Non-represented Health Plan/Hospital staff below the executive level will continue to be eligible for an annual salary increase; however, we will reduce the budget for salary increases 1 percentage point across the Program.  For example, regions with an annual increase budget set at 3 percent of total payroll will be reduced to 2 percent.  Individual salary increases may vary.
·         Incentive pay will be paid out for eligible employees.  As in previous years the paid percentage will be determined by actual 2008 performance against targets.
·         We will hold our full-time staffing to 2008 year-end levels.  Additional staffing will be initiative-specific with a strong business case, such as internalizing services.  While we will try to minimize reductions in staffing, reductions may be necessary in some areas.
·         We will reduce the use of temporary staff, consultants, and contractors across the Program.
·         We will aggressively pursue marketing, advertising, sales, and account management activities that retain membership and increase sales, to offset losses due to rising unemployment.
·         We will reduce travel by at least 25.
·         We will downsize or eliminate large national meetings and conferences in favor of telephone, web, and video conferencing.
·         We will hold our Programwide capital spending (including new facilities, equipment and information technology) to 2008 levels, giving priority to projects needed to improve care, maintain our facilities, and position us for future growth.

While we recognize that some of these actions will be difficult, they are necessary given the challenges of our current economic environment.  These steps will better position Kaiser Permanente to care for our patients today and into the future.

Each of you plays an important role in the work that lies ahead.  In addition to participating in the actions listed above, you can also contribute in the following ways:
·         Continue to team with your manager/supervisor and colleagues to ensure you are working as efficiently as possible, and speak up with your ideas to improve operations and ensure that we meet our budget targets.
·         Openly adopt successful practices of other regions/departments/unit-based teams to drive performance improvement.  We need to capitalize on the great results we are achieving in some areas by translating and adapting them across the Program.
·         Remain focused on delivering high-quality care and service to our members. When each of us changes a little, we all change a lot.  This is how we will retain our members and build a stronger organization during this difficult economic time.  Working together we will provide high-quality care for our members and be a model for our nation.

I am confident that we have everything we need in the great people of this organization to come out of this recession thriving.  We are absolutely focusing on the right work in improving care delivery and making quality health care coverage as affordable as possible.  Thank you for your continued hard work and dedication.