Kaiser Permanente (KP) is launching a Transformational Care Model, which is spawning a whole portfolio of new facilities and technologies that improve access, Kaiser Permanente VP of national facility services Ron Smith (snapped here taking an active interest in his job) tells us. Ron is among the all-star cast of healthcare facility professionals presenting at Bisnow's Orange County Healthcare Expansion Forum on March 24 at the Hyatt Regency Orange County.
The Affordable Care Act has added hundreds of thousands of new members to Kaiser Permanente’s healthcare system (640,000 just last year to a 10 million member base nationally), Ron says.
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Above is an administrative office at Kaiser Permanente's new Manhattan Beach medical office building, which was designed to accommodate the transformational care model.
This care model aims to make access to healthcare services convenient by locating medical office and diagnostic and treatment facilities in communities where members live. These new facilities are being designed to support a new collaborative-care model, where medical staff and professionals work as a team, Ron explains.
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As a result of KP’s long-range planning, 28 medical office buildings are under construction in SoCal, including OC, where KP currently has between 600,000 and 700,000 members. ”We are making a major investment to expand capacity in Irvine,” Ron continues. There also are plans to increase the capacity of labor and delivery services at KP’s Sand Canyon Hospital in Irvine (pictured), one of two OC hospitals.
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Pictured is the mobile charging bar—an amenity in the new design scheme—at the new Manhattan Beach medical office building.
Ron says one of the biggest challenges is finding new sites in locations convenient for members. KP is open to all avenues for creating medical facilities. “We will repurpose existing buildings for sale or build ground-up medical facilities,” he tells us, “and we’re looking at what developers are doing to see how that might be leveraged to meet our needs. We have to be open to all types of opportunities in order to meet the growing demand.” Growth in facilities is linear, but growth in membership is exponential.
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Above is the new, award-winning Kaiser Permanente Anaheim Oncology Center.
KP also plans to build a medical school in Pasadena to train the next generation of primary-care physicians in Kaiser’s Transformational Care Model and new culture of care where preventive medicine is fundamental and care delivery addresses the needs of a diverse population. The new physicians will be tech-savvy, able to adapt quickly to new technologies and trained to work collaboratively in spaces designed for efficient patient flow, Ron adds.
Hear more from Ron and other healthcare professionals about how changes in healthcare are affecting real estate at Bisnow's Healthcare Expansion Forum on March 24, beginning at 7:30am with breakfast and networking at the Hyatt Regency Orange County at 11999 Harbor Blvd, Garden Grove. Sign up here!
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