path to performance

Below is the most recent table showing unit-based team performance across Kaiser Permanente. Our National Agreement goal was to have 658 high-achieving teams by the end of 2011. With 1,097 teams rated at level 4 or 5 in early January, we have almost doubled our goal for the year – and more than tripled the number of high performing teams in place in January 2011.

For Kaiser Permanente and the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, 2011 ended on a high note: We substantially surpassed our goal for achieving high-performing unit-based teams. The National Agreement charged all of us with the achievement of 658 high-performing teams (level 4-5) based on the Path to Performance standards established in the Agreement. As of late December we had some 1,000 high-performing teams in place!

We thought we were going to meet with 14 or 15 UBT co-leads from the Fontana Medical Center in Southern California for a discussion about unit-based teams. But when we pulled into the lot and couldn’t find a place to park, we became suspicious.

The Path to Performance has been on the minds of regional LMP co-leads, UBT consultants and sponsors recently as we finished gathering baseline data on high-performing teams. None of us were surprised, as we collapsed four different score cards and multiple criteria into a single system for rating team progress, by the decrease in the number of high-performing teams. Thanks to everyone’s hard work, we reached agreement on the tool, and the process for the rating was unified and the data loaded in UBT tracker by January 14.

We just returned from the beautiful Northwest Region, where we spent several days visiting with UBT co-leads, Performance Improvement staff, senior leadership and the UBT Resource Team.

As we travel to the different regions we are constantly meeting unit-based teams that are truly high performing. These teams have made the commitment to do things differently and get everyone involved in the decision making process. But how does a team know when they have hit and are sustaining their peak performance? Is it the same from department to department? Facility to facility? Region to region?