Unit-based team concepts

Our members and patients count on Kaiser Permanente for affordable, quality care — and more unit-based teams than ever are focusing on ways to improve efficiency as well as service and quality. In fact, service or quality care improvements often lead to more cost-effective care, which benefits KP, our workforce and, most of all, our members and patients. Use these tips to jump-start your team’s thinking about the financial impacts of your improvements.

1. Think about potential financial impact from the start of your project. This will help you identify early on the data to collect and monitor so the financial impact can be calculated later. Keeping the financial impact in mind can also help refine your SMART goal.
2. Get a good grasp of what you’re trying to improve. Then think about the cost associated with that thing. For instance, if your goal is to streamline scheduling, think about the potential costs, such as excessive overtime, associated with an inefficient schedule.
3. Have a clear understanding of your baseline metric. Once you know what your goal is, determine the associated costs before any changes are made. This will help you translate the improvement into money saved.
4. Work with your local finance team. If you don’t have a relationship with your local finance department, ask your UBT consultant or improvement advisor to connect you with the right person to help you determine the dollar value of a project.
5. Find out if there’s a team in your facility or service area that is working on something similar.
6. Another team may already have figured out ways to calculate the financial impact your project might have or may have different ideas for measuring its financial benefit.
7. Look beyond the hard dollar savings. “Soft dollars” can be equally important. These are avoided costs or improvements that don’t reduce the money spent but allow us to do more with the resources we have. Examples include improvements in re-admission rates, number of no-show appointments or time spent looking for supplies.
8. Value the financial impact of small improvements. If an improvement and its estimated financial impact seem small, remember to figure out the potential savings over time or add up what happens if the practice spreads to other departments or facilities.

Unit-based teams are getting results — and are finding ways to share their learning with their peers face to face, online or in print. Talk with your team about how to use these and other ideas to share your learning and spread success.

1. Track your progress. UBT Tracker is a web-based tool that helps unit-based teams and consultants collect and report information about their performance improvement work. Our UBT Tracker User Guide can help you make the most of your Tracker entries or search for model projects.
2. Tell your story. Storytelling is one of the best ways  to explain partnership and show others your results. Sign your team up for our storytelling training. 
3. Step right up. UBT fairs are a dynamic forum for spreading effective practices face to face. Hosting your own webinar online lets you reach beyond the walls  of your facility.
4. Lights…camera…take action. Kaiser Permanente’s Care Management Institute uses video ethnography— interviewing KP patients at the care site—to help teams share ideas and keep patients at the centerof performance improvement. To learn more, visit CMI’s Video Ethnography & Storytelling page [KP intranet].
5. Write all about it. Use fliers, posters and newsletters to keep others informed and engaged in your team’s projects. Post your results in the break room. Invite another unit to your huddle for a progress report. Use these templates to create your next newsletter.

Sponsors are the go-to people for UBT co-leads, providing resources, guidance and oversight for teams — and effective sponsorship is one of the most important ingredients for a high-performing unit-based team. If you’re a sponsor, provide your teams with the support they need to create an environment where UBT members are always learning, always improving, always innovating.

1. Make it a priority to be involved. Provide feedback and hold teams accountable for action plans.
2. Coach and mentor co-leads; connect them with opportunities to develop needed skills or knowledge. Developing strong team members will ease your work in the long run.
3. Take time for face time. Walk the floor with team members and occasionally attend UBT meetings.
4. Share expectations up front with your co-sponsor and team co-leads. Define how you’ll make decisions and how you’ll communicate and how often.
5. Help team members build their problem-solving skills by having them develop solutions, but if there are barriers outside the co-leads’ or team’s scope, get busy breaking them down.
6. Educate your teams about local work plans and regional performance priorities so they can work on the right projects. Be sure, too, that things team members care most about get addressed.
7. Celebrate and highlight successes, both large and small, by rewarding individuals and teams in a way that is meaningful to them — whether it’s an email, party, lunch or a parking spot for a month.
8. Secure the resources your teams need to get work done, such as time for regular trainings or meetings and access to data that will help benchmark their performance.
9. Establish a baseline Path to Performance rating. Assist teams in understanding the rating and connect them with resources or successful practices that will help them become high performing.
10. Ensure teams are documenting their work regularly, accurately and concisely in UBT Tracker.

Managing in partnership is different from traditional management. You still have responsibility for managing employees’ performance, but when it comes to your department’s performance, the whole team plays a role in making the department a great place to work and to receive care. Frontline employees know where the problems are and have great ideas for solutions. Research shows that managers who engage their teams get better results, and team members are more enthusiastic about implementing the solution because they helped come up with it.

1. Be knowledgeable about the National Agreement. Download the National Agreement or get from your local human resources representative.
2. Get trained on the Labor Management Partnership. See your local learning and development website or our list of regional training contacts.
3. Proactively develop relationships with your union partners. Get to know your shop steward, union representative and other local labor leaders. Check in with them on a regular basis to share information and get their ideas.
4. Model partnership with your union partner. Treat each other with mutual respect. Attend LMP trainings together. Jointly develop meeting agendas and share meeting facilitation responsibilities. Share information, identify problems and develop possible solutions in collaboration.
5. Be accessible to staff. Spend time visiting with people on the front lines. Roam the department on a regular basis. Eat in the lunch room. Implement an “open door” policy for staff members who come by and want to talk.
6. Be open to the ideas of all employees. Encourage people to share ideas and have input on procedures or work flow. Create an environment in which people feel comfortable speaking up. And be open to trying new ways of doing things.
7. Create a structure for dialogue and engagement. Make sure time is set aside for partnership meetings, huddles and training.
8. Tell it like it is. Be open and honest in your communication and transparent with information. Share your department’s budget with team members to get their ideas on reducing costs.
9. Recognize and value employees’ contributions. Go out of your way to acknowledge someone who comes up with or implements an idea that has made the department a better place to work and provide care.
10. Develop employees to become department leaders. If union partners or other team members want to help the department succeed by polishing their problem-solving, meeting management or other skills, encourage and support them in their efforts.

Need a poster, video or article to share with your team? Looking for a copy of your union’s contract? This training will show you how to easily find and share information on LMPartnership.org from your desktop and your smartphone.

Training description

LMPartnership.org contains many tools employees, managers and teams need at work. This interactive training will show you and your colleagues how to navigate the site. You'll learn how to quickly locate, save and share successful practices, Path to Performance tips, icebreakers for your UBT meeting, and more. 

Path to Performance

Levels 1—5

Duration

Usually 30 minutes to 60 minutes. Can be customized to suit your team’s needs.

Who should attend

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