LMP Concepts

Program description

The Business Literacy Series (BLS) is a highly interactive and engaging curriculum designed to educate frontline teams/departments about the business of Kaiser Permanente. These face-to-face courses encourage active learning through group activities. Courses may be delivered at a dedicated training session or be used as just-in-time tools at staff meetings, UBT meetings or brown bag sessions to meet the needs of each region, service area or medical center.

Scroll down for details on each course or download an at-a-glance description.

Path to Performance

Level 3

Duration

Each course runs between 45 and 55 minutes:

• KP’s Integrated Business Model (IBM), 45 minutes
• Revenue Expenses and Margins (REM), 50 minutes
• Health Care Costs and Trends (HCCT), 55 minutes
• External Measures of Success: How UBTs Can Influence KP’s Scores (EMS), 45 minutes
• Our Unit-Based Team Perspective and People Pulse (UBTP), 45 minutes
• A KP History Timeline (HT), 55 minutes

Who should attend

Job categories include labor and management members of a unit-based team.

Program requirements

It is recommended participants have completed their foundational LMP training for level 1 and 2 teams.

BLS series course objectives and learning outcomes

KP’s Integrated Business Model (IBM)

This 45-minute course explains KP's unique business model: Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, the Permanente Medical Group and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals (or locally contracted hospital services). At the end of this session, learners will be able to explain the competitive advantages of this model and the benefits to KP members.

Revenue, Expenses and Margin (REM)

This 50-minute course shows how our decisions and actions can influence the cost of care to KP members and patients. REM focuses on KP’s primary sources of revenue, and how revenues and expenses are allocated across the organization. Learners discuss factors that may lead revenues to rise or fall, and the need to have and meet a margin. At the end of this session, learners will understand the importance of participating in affordability projects.

Health Care Costs and Trends (HCCT)

This 55-minute course examines the financial challenges facing KP members who struggle to afford health care services. It addresses rising health care costs and current trends in today’s changing marketplace. Through video clips, group discussions and brainstorming, participants are encouraged to think about what they can do as individuals and unit-based team members to help improve operations and reduce waste. At the end of this session, learners will understand the need to play a role in improving the affordability of care.

External Measures of Success (EMS)

This 45-minute course shows the connection between the work teams do and the external measures used in the marketplace to evaluate KP’s success. The course offers an overview of key (publically reported) performance metrics, such as the Medicare Star Quality Ratings System, HEDIS (Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set), CAHPS (Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Plans and Systems) and HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Plans and Systems). Learners review case studies and KP service scores that are linked to UBT development. At the end of this session, learners will understand how their unit-based teams can influence these metrics and have a positive impact on KP’s external measures of success.

Our Unit-Based Team Perspective (UBTP)

This 45-minute course brings home the personal side of performance improvement. Participants discuss their experiences working in a unit-based team. Using selected People Pulse survey results and learning exercises, this course shows the benefits of UBTs as a business model. Discussions include how engagement in a UBT influences business performance and the work environment. At the end of this session, learners will be equipped and energized to be part of a high-performing team/department.

A KP History Timeline (HT)

This 55-minute course builds understanding of KP’s mission and accomplishments. It identifies key events that led Kaiser Permanente to its integrated business model and made us a leader in health care. It also reviews how our Labor Management Partnership has influenced KP’s development and strengthened KP and the unions. At the end of this session, learners will feel proud of their contributions to the health of our communities, and how to be effective ambassadors for KP.

FAQs

Q: Does my team need to complete all courses to fulfill requirements for business literacy?

A: Business literacy training requirements are determined by each region. For more details, connect with your corresponding unit-based team consultant or your regional LMP training office.

Q: What is the difference between the Business Literacy Series and some existing business literacy modules?

A: Click here for details.

Course description

Team Leadership for Co-leads is designed to bring labor, management and physician co-leads together to facilitate conversations about the performance of their unit-based teams. The co-leads receive information about high-performing unit-based teams at Kaiser Permanente and then review a 360 feedback tool to use with their teams after the course. Participants will learn a basic coaching model and practice role playing UBT coaching scenarios. Participants also will learn the fundamentals of how people adapt to change, review a change management model for leaders, and make agreements on how to manage change in their role with their unit-based teams. In addition, participants will learn the fundamentals of Emotional Intelligence and how to use “EQ” when leading change.

Path to Performance

Level 3, 4, 5

Duration

8 hours

Who should attend

This course is intended for participants who are experienced co-leads of unit-based teams. Job categories who should attend union, management and physician co-leads.

Course requirements

• Labor Management Partnership Orientation (LMPO)
• Co-Lead Workshop
• Labor and management co-leads attend the training together

Course description

Participants will learn core facilitation practices and will practice these skills and receive feedback from instructors. The participants will determine how facilitation skills are used when leading a UBT.

Path to Performance

Level 3, 4, 5 

Duration

2 days

Who should attend

This course is intended for anyone facilitating unit-based teams. Job categories who should attend include physician, management, labor, unit-based team consultants and union partnership representatives.

Course requirements

None

Rally your co-workers and have fun at the same time. This training offers ideas on making meetings interesting and productive.

Training description

Finding ways to involve everyone on a unit-based team can be tough, especially in large departments. This interactive workshop gives participants tips and tricks to engage co-workers in partnership work. Develop your leadership skills and have fun, too!  

Path to Performance

Levels 1—5

Duration

Usually 90 minutes, but this training can be customized to suit your team's needs.

Who should attend

This in-person training is for unit-based teams, LMP councils, units/departments, and other groups.

Course description

It is critical for steward sponsors and management sponsors to invest in the development of the unit-based team, which will have a long-term impact on the organization, and to learn about tools and resources available to them in their sponsor role. This course is designed to help union, physician and management sponsors discover the benefits of effective sponsorship and how it can help them develop successful, sustainable unit-based teams.

Union and management sponsors will gain an awareness of how their role is critical to the transformation of how the work at Kaiser Permanente is done.
 

Path to Performance

Level 2

Duration

3 hours

Who should attend

This course is intended for participants who are sponsors of unit-based teams. Job categories who should attend labor, management and physician.

Course requirements

Labor Management Partnership Orientation (LMPO)

Course description

The Co-lead workshop exposes co-leads to the skills and knowledge needed to make unit-based teams work together effectively. The skills the co-lead learns are discussed and agreements are made regarding implementation as he/she returns to the unit-based team.

Path to Performance

Levels 2, 3

Duration

Two 4-hour modules (8 hours total)

Who should attend

This course is the first of two workshops intended specifically for all labor, management or physician unit-based team co-leads. The workshop builds on previous LMP orientation training co-leads may have attended. Following this course, co-leads are encouraged to attend the advanced course titled: Team Leadership for Co-leads: Leading Your Team to the Next Level. 

Course requirements

• Labor Management Partnership Orientation
• Labor and management co-leads attend the training together

Requires basic knowledge of:

• Consensus Decision Making (CDM)
• Interest-Based Problem Solving (IBPS)

Course description

Issue resolution/corrective action is one of the foundation blocks for success of the partnership. The course explores how issues are discovered and together labor and management determine root cause, working with the employee. Also covered is how creative problem solving is used in the workplace to resolve team issues to individual performance in a non-punitive manner.

Path to Performance

Level 1

Duration

8 hours

Who should attend

Job categories include stewards, union representatives, managers and human resources consultants

Course requirements

Belong to a union in the Alliance of Health Care Unions or the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, or work with an Alliance- or Coalition-represented employee

Course description

Interest-Based Problem Solving offers labor management partners a method to solve problems using a non-adversarial process. This training program provides guidance in the four-step interest-based problem-solving process, along with a simulation exercise that gives participants an opportunity to practice the process.

Path to Performance

Levels 1, 2 

Duration

• 4 hours (classroom)
• 30 minutes (online)

Who should attend

People engaged in problem solving at the unit-based team level up to regional Labor Management Partnership committees should attend this training, along with any union and management staff members working on issue resolution and corrective action. Job categories who can take this class are labor, management and physician members of a unit-based team, Labor Management Partnership and unit-based team consultants, improvement advisers and Union Partnership Representatives.

Course description

The curriculum is planned around bringing a new manager up to speed on the working environment as it relates to partnership and unit-based teams, and how to take their traditional role and seamlessly integrate it in this new environment. The materials in the class are intended to be a takeaway the participants can use later as a valuable reference tool.

Path to Performance

Level 1

Duration

• 4 modules (classroom)
• 60 minutes, approximately (online)

Who should attend

This course is intended for new managers to a partnership environment.

Course requirements

• Labor Management Partnership Orientation (LMPO)
• Completion of course pre-work prior to class

Course description

The training provides an overview of why the Labor Management Partnership is important to Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions and how unit-based teams are transforming Kaiser Permanente. Topics covered are types of unit-based teams, roles and responsibilities of employees on unit-based teams and consensus decision making basics.

Path to Performance

Level 1

Duration

• 4 hours (classroom)
• 45 minutes (online)

Who should attend

Employees within their first 120 days of employment at Kaiser Permanente should attend this course. Job categories who can take this class are labor, management and physician members of unit-based teams.

Course requirements

This is an introductory course. There are no prerequisites.