April 6, 2011 
While I was at the World Healthcare Congress yesterday, I had the opportunity to go into DC to visit the new Kaiser Center for Total Health. This is their showcase in the East to facilitate discussions around improving healthcare. It’s not a replacement for the Garfield facility in CA, but it will create an more accessible forum for dialog with policymakers and international visitors. (NYTimes post about the opening)
It’s one of those fun places where you can go and interact with technology. It’s full of technology like telemedicine and telemonitoring. It provides you with demos of the world’s smallest ultrasound device and connected devices. It showcases Kaiser’s rich history and their MyHealthManager tool.
Their online tools have some great stats:
- 3.3M members signed up
- 25.8M test results viewed in 2010
- 10.7M emails sent to MD’s in 2010
There are a lot of videos where you can hear employees, members, clinicians, and others talk about what they think “total health” is. And, they have a massive interactive mural about their walking initiative.
It seems like this type of interactive, high technology space is becoming an asset at several companies. We used to have this innovative, brainstorming space at E&Y years ago and clients loved it. I believe IDEO has this type of space.
I enjoy it. It’s interesting, inspiring, and creates a dynamic work environment. I look forward to see how this space gets used and what others think.
I agree, I have experienced Kaiser for 10 years and very satisfied. As a memo in 1991 I met with the Pharmacy director in Southern California and present my company as a supplier and he stated the goal of Kaiser was to fill every Prescription in the US.