Path to Performance

Goals and Performance

UBTs use the Value Compass, which puts the member at the center of every decision, to focus the team’s performance improvement projects on achieving the highest quality, the best service, the most affordable care and the best place to work. UBT goals and improvement work should also be aligned with the priorities of the facility and region where the team is located.

Use of Tools

 

To identify change they want to make in their departments and test them to see if they work, unit-based teams use tools such as the Rapid Improvement Model (also known as RIM+), process mapping and waste walks. Using these performance improvement tools has allowed UBTs throughout Kaiser Permanente to improve service, quality, affordability and the work environment. UBT Tracker is an online tool teams use to track their projects and tests of change.

Team Member Engagement

When UBT members are actively involved with their team, they speak up with their best ideas about how to improve the department. They take advantage of partnership processes like consensus decision-making and interest-based problem solving to make the department a great place to work. They look at how the department is doing on key metrics—like those around service and quality—and use that information to come up with ideas for improvement.

Connecting the Dots With Popular Education

Submitted by Laureen Lazarovici on Wed, 10/26/2016 - 00:51
Region
Southern California
Keywords
education
Topics
Workforce of the Future
Role
Frontline Workers
Taxonomy upgrade extras
lmpartnership.org
Request Number
sty_popular_education
Long Teaser

The LMP is using popular education strategies to improve business and economic literacy on the front line. Staff at the Woodland Hills Medical Center describe how the training brings potentially dry subjects to life.

Communicator (reporters)
Laureen Lazarovici
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UBT consultants work together dividing beans into cups to illustrate wealth inequality in the U.S. as part of a workshop by United for a Fair Economy using popular education techniques
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Business and Economic Literacy

Because more health care expense is shifting to the patient, it's important to know what you can offer. As they spend more, they expect more.

Learn where Kaiser Permanente dollars come from—and where they go—so you can provide the best customer service.

Business Literacy Training Glossary
Status
Released
Tracking (editors)
Flash
Story content (editors)
Headline (for informational purposes only)
Connecting the dots with popular education
Deck
LMP course brings business, economic issues to life
Byline
Laureen Lazarovici
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Receptionist Sam Eckstein encourages his co-workers at the Woodland Hills Medical Center lab not only to meet—but to exceed—patient expectations of excellent service. To back up his coaching, he’s using the knowledge he gained in a new LMP course on business and economic literacy.

During the course, Eckstein and about a dozen other workers and managers learned about the rising cost of health insurance in the United States and the trend toward businesses’ shifting more health care costs to employees.

Because patients are paying more, “Their expectations are higher,” says Eckstein, a member of SEIU UHW. “When patients come in without an order [for a lab procedure], we can’t just send them home,” and inconvenience them by making them come back another day, he says. “We have to help meet their needs.”

Eckstein took part in a pilot project to test the Labor Management Partnership’s new approach using popular education techniques to ensure frontline employees and managers have the context and know-how they need to continue improving team performance and keep Kaiser Permanente affordable.

What’s different about popular education?

Popular education turns the old-fashioned schoolroom model of teaching and learning on its head. It is ideally suited to the Labor Management Partnership, which is built on the belief that all employees, managers and physicians bring their expertise and experience to bear on improving service and care at KP. No longer is the teacher or trainer the sole expert in the classroom, there to fill students’ minds with information they passively receive, memorize and repeat.

Instead, popular education taps into participants’ experiences in their communities and workplaces and uses them to generate dialogue. It explores the social and economic context of students’ lives and asks probing questions: What are people happy about? Worried about? Fearful about? Hopeful about? Students are encouraged to analyze that information—and to take action.

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Training

Working in partnership and creating a collaborative, high-functioning team requires specific skills, and the LMP Learning program offers a variety of training opportunities—online and in person—to ensure UBT members, co-leads and sponsors can be successful. Different trainings are recommended at different levels of the Path to Performance and cover areas such as problem solving, decision making and performance improvement.

UBT Basics

Unit-based teams (UBTs) are transforming Kaiser Permanente by changing the roles of union members and managers and creating an environment in which all employees are encouraged to think critically about problem solving and work innovations. They were launched in 2005 as part of that year’s National Agreement. The people who negotiated the agreement envisioned UBTs as a way to improve care by tapping into the knowledge and experience of frontline staff, managers and physicians. The Partnership unions have since reaffirmed UBTs as a platform for improvement in each National Agreement.

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