Kaiser Permanenteb Receives Mary Eliza Mahoney Award For Improving Minority Access To Health Care

OAKLAND, Calif., April 11 /PRNewswire/ -- During its Annual Leadership Summit on Health Disparities, National Minority Health Month Foundation (NMHMF) will award Kaiser Permanente the 2005 Mary Eliza Mahoney Award, an honor given to individuals or organizations for outstanding contributions to improving access to health care in minority communities.

"This award is in recognition of the outstanding work that Kaiser Permanente has done to ensure that minorities have access to the best possible care," said Gary Puckrein, Executive Director, NMHMF.

Dr. Winston F. Wong, Clinical Director of Community Benefit for Kaiser Permanente's Care Management Institute, will accept the award named after America's first African American professional nurse. Mary Eliza Mahoney graduated from the New England Hospital for Women and Children Training School for Nurses in 1879.

In reviewing Kaiser Permanente's work to improve access to health care in minority populations, the NMHMF found particularly impressive a diabetes study conducted by Kaiser Permanente's Care Management Institute (KPCMI). The study sought to see how KPCMI's data on chronic illness cross-related to the Foundation's data as it pertains to end-stage renal disease, a complication of having diabetes. The Foundation applies evidence-based solutions to health care disparities using zip code data.

"The goal was to provide some validation to our understanding of the prevalence of disparities in African American and Hispanic populations by zip code," said Winston F. Wong, MD, KPCMI's Clinical Director for Community Benefit.

"Our work with the National Minority Health Month Foundation is an example of how collaborative partnership elevates our national understanding of the roots of disparities in health outcomes," said Dr. Wong. "For Kaiser Permanente, it represents a tremendous opportunity to understand how we, as the nation's largest integrated delivery system, can work with others to remove this nation's historic barriers of discrimination, access, and linguistic isolation in health care, and put in its place a system of care whose hallmarks are quality and cultural competence."

One way of focusing on improving Kaiser Permanente's delivery of care is through Kaiser Permanente's Institute for Culturally Competent Care, which provides training, tools, and resources for Kaiser Permanente providers and clinicians to enhance cross-cultural communication during the clinical encounter.

Says Nilda Chong, M.D., director of the Kaiser Permanente's Institute for Culturally Competent Care: "We have launched eight Centers of Excellence in Culturally Competent Care. The Centers develop innovative approaches to caring with respect and sensitivity for our diverse membership."

"Our work contributes to decreasing disparities in health for culturally diverse populations, and we are delighted to be recognized as a model for the nation," said Dr. Chong.

April is National Minority Health Month. The Foundation will wrap up the month with its Annual Leadership Summit on Health Disparities on April 26-27, 2005 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, DC. To register, please go to http://www.nmhmfsummit.org/ or contact 202-223-7560.

The National Minority Health Month Foundation is a 501c3 organization that promotes the building of coalitions and evidence-based solutions towards the elimination of health disparities.

Kaiser Permanente is America's leading integrated health plan. Founded in 1945, it is a nonprofit, group practice prepayment program with headquarters in Oakland, California. Kaiser Permanente serves the health care needs of 8.2 million members in 9 states and the District of Columbia. Today it encompasses the nonprofit Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and their subsidiaries, and the for-profit Permanente Medical Groups. Nationwide, Kaiser Permanente includes approximately 140,000 technical, administrative and clerical employees and caregivers, and more than 11,000 physicians representing all specialties.

The Care Management Institute is a unique, pioneering institution with a mandate to drive, fund, and catalyze evidence-based population care and disease management activities throughout Kaiser Permanente.

CONTACT: Helen Pettay, Communications Director of Kaiser Permanente'sCare Management Institute, +1-510-271-6364, or helen.pettay@kp.org; or CleveMesidor, Director of Communications and Media Strategies of National MinorityHealth Month Foundation, +1-202-223-7560, ext. 5941, orcmesidor@americanvisions.com

Web site: http://www.nmhmfsummit.org/

Web site: http://www.kaiserpermanente.org/