Healing Together: The Labor-Management Partnership at Kaiser Permanente (The Culture and Politics of Health Care Work)

written by a team of writers that are thoroughly knowladgeable about American health care and the impact ofpolitical programs on our community health care. Must reading for those who wonder about the impact of managedhealth care in the United States today.

Fascinating reading. The history of Kaiser Permanente is complicated and interesting. Henry Kaiser, Sydney Garfield and the group are very interesting and progressive people.

Very interesting and inspiring story. Used it as a resources for a paper on union-management cooperation.

As a participant in the Kaiser Permanente system, I can say that my experience as a patient is very positive. It is quite fascinating to consider that this fact may ultimately come from something that is being done smartly between management and representatives of the employees. In a sense one can feel that as a patient with them. Every doctor I have seen in Kaiser's system has been noteworthy for a general no-nonsense attentiveness and care. The rap on HMOs is that they want to do as little as possible for you. This has not been my experience at all with Kaiser, and the investigation in this book would seem to point to a sense of empowerment for the employees -- the medical professionals and doctors -- which speaks to the sense of caring initiative. Because of various commitments and travel I had slacked off a bit in my regularity in coming in. In the meantime, I was assigned a new doctor, and since I liked the last one I wondered naturally if the new doctor would be as engaging. Well, the fine thing to report is that my new doctor, let's abbreviate his name to Dr. M.J., is by far the best doctor I have seen in my life. Caring, displaying great knowledge, no-nonsense, realistic, and kind. It is the simplest surmise that the Kaiser system must in some way support such a high level of interaction, or it wouldn't happen. Further, when Dr. M.J. saw that I hadn't come-in in a while he said, "You mean you have been paying your monthly fee and not taking advantage of our services, that makes no sense!" I said then, "Well, from the typical HMO point of view am I not the ideal client?" The doctor responded emphatically, "That is not how we think here!". I think it speaks to the sense of reliability I have experienced at Kaiser that after such a good interaction I am quite sure I will be a more frequent user of the system. In hearing all the wrangling about health care and government, much of which is quite beyond the average consumer's ability to grasp, I can't help feeling that Kaiser ought to be studied for a general sense of doing things right. That is why I took an interest in this book. Simple as that.