Kaiser Permenante, a non-profit healthcare organization, achieves operational effectiveness through several ways. For example, Kaiser is consistently involved in sharing intellectual capital with community hospitals. This prevents Kaiser from readmitting their own patients but also does not bog the medicare/Medicaid system with readmission of their own patients. Secondly, Kaiser has also been able to achieve operational effectiveness through their labor management partnership. With an effective labor management partnership, Kaiser has been able to have decrease staff turnover rate which is approximately two percent. The union has been able to negotiate adequate benefits which have prevented frequent turnover which can be very costly to an organization. For example, this can prevent nursing strikes which can be very detrimental to patient care/safety. Third, electronic medical records have allowed Kaiser Permenante to operate more effectively by being able to save the medical staff time. Instead of the medical staff spending time to fax/email a patient charts/X-rays/lab results, a physician is able to obtain patient charts, X-rays, and lab results to react right away, which can be a difference in saving a life. Electronic medical records also cut down on mistakes made by medical staff personnel. This is seen when physicians write prescriptions that can now be clearly understood by pharmacists or nurses. Before EMR, nurses and pharmacists have sometimes misunderstood physician handwriting which has led to the wrong medication being dispersed. Last but not least, Kaiser Permenante has been improved their operational effectiveness by their implementation of simulation labs. These labs are used for teaching courses such as CPR, Advanced Life Support, and improving critical hospital scenarios. These simulation labs cut down the cost of personnel who were once needed to teach these courses and improve the efficiency of the medical staff by being readily available for practice.
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