Pictures and Quotes: Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center

I am adding images from Josh’s and my visit to Kaiser Permanente Oakland Medical Center in this post, plus a few quotes from Victor and his Medical Assistant, Monica.

I’ve just got these two things and it (the system) prioritizes them nicely – Victor Silvestre, MD

Victor said this as he pointed to the home screen of the electronic health record, HealthConnect. On the left were his day’s visits, on the right was his electronic In Basket, which included patient secure e-mail, right within his workflow.

I loved this quote because it echoes perfectly what my medical partner David McCulloch, MD, Medical Director of Clinical Improvement and Education, says about the patient view of health care:


Patientviewidealhealthcare

Instead of many many things we need to give to patients, it’s just two things, illustrated above and in Victor’s quote.

I used to check for patient e-mail’s exactly 4 times per week. Now I do it millions of times a day – Victor Silvestre, MD

In this quote, he was referring to the impact of integrating secure e-mail into his workflow, as part of the EHR he uses to care for patients every day. The “millions of times” was in jest of course, but the idea is that as he touches the system many times a day to support patients who come to visit him in person, he can also simultaneously touch patients who are not in front of him, and blend that into his support of a whole population seamlessly.

It’s better than all…..this (waving a paper chart) – Monica, Medical Assistant

This was the answer when I asked what Monica thought of the EHR she’s using in practice with her care team. What I was that the staff was eager to use the new technology to do more for patients, and in several instances, to support physicians in using it better. That’s the nice thing about patient-centered health information technology – everyone gets to help everyone use it better for people.

Images: click on any to see larger. I’m including a bonus of myself and Ed Cohen, MD, who’s the Physician Lead for kp.org for The Permanente Medical Group and who helped arrange today’s visit in the interest of sharing knowledge.

Ted Eytan, MD