Kaiser Permanente Wins Disease Management Award
OAKLAND, Calif., Nov. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- The Disease Management Association of America honored Kaiser Permanente's Care Management Institute (KP-CMI) this week for its broad efforts in helping members to live healthier lifestyles.
The association bestowed its Recognizing Excellence Award for the Best Application of Behavioral Change Principles to the institute's weight management initiative.
"We're particularly pleased to receive recognition from the DMAA for the numerous ways we support our members in making healthier lifestyle choices," said Paul Wallace, MD, Care Management Institute executive director. "Engaging and empowering individuals to improve their own self care is key to helping our members thrive."
In 2002, KP-CMI and the eight Kaiser Permanente regions formed a weight management initiative to address the rising prevalence of obesity. Numerous Kaiser Permanente programs now help members make needed lifestyle changes, eat healthier diets, and become more physically active. More than 1,000 Kaiser Permanente physicians and 2,000 other community physicians have been trained in techniques to counsel patients about behavior changes related to weight management.
"In the area of weight management, Kaiser Permanente has benefited from the expertise and practice of other health plans, community groups, and national organizations, including the Program for Nutrition and Physical Activity of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," said William Caplan, MD, KP-CMI's director of clinical development strategy and weight management initiative strategic director. "Kaiser Permanente, in turn, is helping educate others around the country who are trying to combat the epidemic of overweight and obesity in the United States."
Kaiser Permanente clinicians play an important role in the weight management initiative's success. "The clinicians working with the weight management initiative have brought successful practices and programs to the forefront of Kaiser Permanente," says Trina Histon, PhD, weight management initiative co-lead. "The award also represents efforts by Kaiser Permanente clinicians and medical office staff to take the time to have positive conversations about weight and health with our members, said Keith Bachman, MD, an internist in Kaiser Permanente's Northwest region and clinical lead of the weight management initiative. "Weight management is an issue where the personal health goals of members and our clinicians' desires to improve the health of our members intersect and come to life."
Kaiser Permanente is America's leading integrated health plan. Founded in 1945, it is a not-for-profit; group practice prepayment program headquartered in Oakland, Calif. Kaiser Permanente serves the health care needs of more than 8.3 million members in nine states and the District of Columbia. Today it encompasses the not-for-profit Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and their subsidiaries, and the for-profit Permanente Medical Groups. Nationwide, Kaiser Permanente includes approximately 145,000 technical, administrative and clerical employees and caregivers, and more than 12,000 physicians representing all specialties.
Kaiser PermanenteCONTACT: Alexandra Matisoff-Li of Kaiser Permanente, 1-510-271-5624, oralexandra.matisoff-li@kp.org
Web site: http://www.kaiserpermanente.org/