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Converting Agreement
to Action
The trick of course is showing people
what “this” is: The enormous,
programwide effort that 250 employees,
managers, physicians, and Union
Coalition staff kicked off in March to
convert agreement—not just implementing
a plan, but establishing the
Partnership as KP’s operating strategy—to
action in the coming months
and years.
How enormous? When
those 250 people left
San Francisco after
a three-day working
session
March 21-23,
they left behind
16 draft work
plans that
addressed 146
deliverables
spelled out in the
National Agreement
that must be planned
and executed. These are
real projects, planned by real people,
who—because they also have
their day jobs to do—are really busy.
Those Implementation Action Team
members identified many of the
complex issues that will be
addressed across KP to effectively
implement the National Agreement
— for instance, the launch of unitbased
teams, a key building block
for the Partnership. The teams will
also address the roll-out of the new
Attendance program, the details of
two workforce development trusts,
PHOTO: SCOTT BRAILEY
“I’m very
comfortable that
we will achieve
what we need to
achieve—there’s no
reason to think we
wouldn’t.”
the logistics of budgeting and backfill,
performance improvement, and
a host of other issues.
As the Action Teams develop
detailed work plans, KP and Union
Coalition leaders have mapped out a
plan for what gets done when, taking
into account regional priorities.
Based on factors such as whether an
initiative is critical to the work of
other Action Teams, or whether an
initiative has specific deadlines
imposed by the
National Agreement,
or an initiative’s
measurable
return on investment,
the work
of some teams
may get a jump
start.
That all sounds
interesting, and
promising…and
yet so bureaucratic.
Why is this different
than the unevenly implemented
2000 National Agreement?
Bulging Biceps Ahead
Many union and management leaders
acknowledge that the 2000
National Agreement wasn’t fully
implemented. What’s different this
time, they say, is that this agreement
has “muscle”—in the form of the
Kaiser Foundation Health
Plan/Hospitals’ Boards of
Directors—and that muscle has
already put a mighty grip on the
management, Union Coalition, and
medical group executives who have
to report their progress at every
board meeting.
Here’s how it works:
■ The Implementation Action
Teams—frontline workers and
managers, many of whom were
involved in National Bargaining—
were responsible for coming up
with detailed work plans and presenting
them to their leaders by
June 1. Those plans must include
timelines, benchmarks, and metrics.
■ A project management office coordinates
the effort and maintains a
painstakingly detailed “dashboard”
showing which initiatives are on
track, and which are falling
behind. A “green” project is on
track. A “red” project is not—and
stands out like a sore thumb.
■ The LMP Strategy Group—a team
of the top 30 union, management,
and physician leaders across KP—
will review and approve those
work plans in July. Five strategy
group members comprise the
Common Issues Action Team,
which directly oversees implementation
and reports to the
Strategy Group and the KFHP/H
directors.
That gives this implementation the
“muscle” that the 2000 effort never
had. Others prefer to refer to the
process with the A-word:
Accountability.
“I heard the A-word many times
(during National Bargaining),”
Clayton says.
Implementation progress is measured in a
“dashboard”—green is good, yellow warns
of issues, red gets prompt attention.
I see this implementation process as
a big, big part of the A-word. The
Action Teams, the Action Plans, the
dashboard—all of those will all help
with accountability.”
By muscle, or accountability, or by
any other name, the Implementation
Action Teams who met in March
expressed eagerness to finally do
some hands-on work, but also an
overwhelming sense of how much
of a workout they have in store.
Failure Is Not An Option
“We have a heck of a lot of work to
do. I feel a little bit of anxiety; there
are some pretty aggressive timelines
we have to follow,” said Kathy
Petersen, Northern California labor
liaison and the Union Coalition colead
for the Staffing, Budgeting and
Backfill Team. “But it’s not an
option to not get it done.”
There’s certainly the commitment to
get it done, says Catherine Futch,
regional compliance officer in
Georgia and a member of the Scope
of Practice team. “It’s early to say
after just one meeting but there’s a lot
of energy in our team and across all
the teams as a whole, and I expect
that to carry over,” she says. “I’m very
comfortable that we will achieve what
we need to achieve—there’s no reason
to think we wouldn’t.”
The trick, notes Cesar Villalpando,
management co-lead of the staffing
team and executive director of Care
Management in Southern California,
is to get it done within an organization
of KP’s size and complexity.
“There’s a tremendous level of complexity
to our organization and we
need to be thoughtful and practical
in our work to get through the many
layers and layers of the tens of thou-
Rose Cohan facilitates the Joint Marketing
team's work at the March 21-23 Action
Team launch.
4 | HANK JUNE 2006