The employees in Charitable Health Coverage Operations (CHCO) felt good about their Northern California department’s mission—but not so good about how long it took sometimes to help the thousands of low-income children who benefit from KP-subsidized health care.

The department handles the eligibility paperwork for a KP program that provides health coverage to people who don’t qualify for employer-based health coverage or public programs like Medicaid. At the team’s low point in 2005, it had a six-month applications backlog.

“Our primary customers are children,” said Nancy Waring, CHCO customer care manager. “We have over 80,000 children, most of them low income. About 50 percent of our population is Spanish speaking. And the program is completely subsidized by Kaiser.”

Too large a group

In the past, one representative unit-based team encompassed the whole department.  Because employees within the same department were doing very different types of work—processing mail, entering data, processing enrollments, providing customer service, and servicing the regions outside of California—they didn’t share a single set of problems. So the UBT tended to work on departmentwide problems like attendance.

But the single UBT struggled.

 “We basically failed from 2006 to 2009 to do anything,” says Suber Corley, the department’s director, “simply because we were looking at too large a group trying to solve too large a problem.”

So they reorganized. The department now has five UBTs that correspond with employees’ functions.

Setting priorities

The smaller teams set their sites on a number of changes, but they also coordinated with each other on one common goal: to process every application by the 20th of the month.

In their UBT, the mail-room employees decided to look at priorities differently.

“We identified that what we really needed to do was to have a prioritization scheme for every week of the month,” says Victor Romero, CHCO operations manager. He explains that during the first week of January, a recertification application that’s due on April 1 would be low priority in the mail room, whereas a new application—which would need to be processed by January 20 for insurance coverage to begin on February 1—would be high priority. After the 20th, attention moves to the low-priority documents.

The data entry, scanning and enrollment UBTs came up with other solutions, too.

“We instituted several changes in how the application is handled,” says Carl Artis, an enrollment processor team lead and OPEIU Local 29 shop steward. “If we couldn’t process an application, the application was sent back to the customers very early so they could make necessary corrections. We also streamlined our process—there were some things we were doing twice, which wasn’t necessary.”

Artis emphasizes that the changes were developed jointly by frontline workers and managers.

“I have to admit they (the managers) have some really great ideas,” he says, “and they were really able to listen to some great ideas.”

It worked. In October, for the first time in the department’s history, the team was able to process all its new applications by the 20th, so coverage for those applicants could start in November.

“The end result is that poor children did not go without health coverage,” Romero says.

Addressing burnout

In addition to the project to reduce the amount of time it takes to process new applications, the smaller teams have taken on other projects, like reducing burnout among customer service agents who spend all day answering phone calls. They’ve also done charity work together, raising funds to provide school supplies for low-income students at a local high school.

Artis passes on the story of his department’s flourishing UBTs to other members of Local 29.

“I’ve heard some people say, ‘Oh, that’s too much work to take on,’ or, ‘We don’t have the resources we need to address the issue’ or ‘Management would never go for that,’ ” Artis says. “But what I’ve learned is—just try it, and don’t be afraid to fail.”

I have worked at Kaiser Permanente for 33 years, starting as a distribution worker in materials management. Being on the front lines helped me better understand the challenges staff face—and helped me, in my current role, see what it takes to spread and sustain change in a complex organization.

When we launched our first unit-based teams in 2007, I knew they could give our managers and teams a powerful tool for change. But to achieve their full potential, UBTs need the support of leaders at every level. In working with UBTs every day, I have found five practices that can help teams achieve their goals, and have helped me be a more effective leader.

Have patience

I’m not a patient person by nature, and it took a visit to the world-class health care system in Jonkoping, Sweden, for me to see that it takes patience to sustain meaningful change. When you’re solving problems in a team-based workplace, real systemic change takes time. But it also takes hold deeper into the organization.

Really see the work

Spend time with a UBT, or hear teams present their test of change, to understand what they’re working on and how you can support them. There’s no way you can feel the excitement and energy from the team members and not feel proud and motivated by their work.

Spread good work

In Orange County—which has two large hospitals, in Irvine and Anaheim—we expect all teams to continually test and then spread their ideas and successful practices. We call it “One OC” and we talk about it all the time. You’re never going to achieve greatness globally if you don’t spread good work locally.

Provide tools

Early on we formed an Integrated Leaders group of senior labor and management leaders who meet monthly to monitor and assist our 107 UBTs. If a team is struggling, the IL group doesn’t descend on them and try to fix the problem. We provide tools and resources that help the team work through a problem and get results. For instance, we put together a UBT Start-up Toolkit with information on everything from setting up teams to finding training. We’re also looking at toolkits on fishbone diagramming, conducting small tests of change and providing rewards and recognition. And we’re asking how to make it easier for teams to access resources quickly—for instance by identifying go-to people for questions on budgeting, patient satisfaction metrics and so on.

Then, get out of the way

 I have a saying: “Hire great people, give them the coaching and mentoring they need, then get the heck out of their way and let them do what they were hired to do.” I think that works at all levels of the organization, whether or not people are your direct hires. You don’t tell people to make a change or streamline a process without any encouragement or support, but you don’t need to micromanage them either. Delivering great health care is not just a job. It is a calling. Whether you’re a housekeeper preventing infection or a surgeon treating cancer, people’s lives are in our hands. That shared mission drives us to be the best.

What happens when teams truly walk a mile in their patients’ shoes? They often discover their own actions are making that mile a rocky one for patients—and as a result make huge breakthroughs in the way they deliver care.

In the case of South San Francisco’s multidepartmental pre-admission team, observing their processes from the other side of the gurney spurred them to dramatically streamline the pre-surgery and admitting process for patients. With the member at the forefront of their thinking, the team members turned a two-inch-thick packet of confusing, redundant information into a streamlined, one-page checklist. And a funny thing happened—while redesigning the process to help patients, the team improved the way it works.

“Patients would often get confused and weren’t sure what the next step in the process was,” says Brian Tzeng, MD, the Peri-operative Medicine director. “We realized we didn’t have a clear path for the patient to follow.”

Other teams throughout Kaiser Permanente are making similar realizations, framing their performance improvement work by asking the question, “What’s best for the patient?” If a possible solution doesn’t work well for the member and patient, then there’s more brainstorming to be done. These teams are taking the Value Compass to heart—organizing their work not just around the four points but examining what they’re doing from the patient’s perspective.

What does that mean for frontline teams? At the San Diego Medical Center, the Emergency Department sees up to 300 patients every 24 hours. Physicians and staff members are always on the go, delivering on the ultimate bottom line—saved lives. What could be more important? Clinical quality is high; patients are seen in a timely manner and the rate of unscheduled return visits is good.

Yet the results of a recent patient satisfaction survey bothered the team. The department scored well overall, but their patients gave it only 63 percent approval on one question: While you were in the Emergency Department, were you kept informed about how long the treatment would take?

Looking for ways to make the Sand Canyon Surgicenter in Irvine more efficient, Albert Olmeda wound up learning a lot about blue wrap—like the fact that it makes up nearly 20 percent of the waste generated by hospital surgical services. 

The lead Central Services technician and SEIU UHW member also learned that this heavily used hospital product, an industrial strength plastic used to maintain the sterility of medical and surgical instruments until opened, is not biodegradable and persists in the environment. 

But recycled blue wrap can be sold as raw material for use in the production of other plastic products. Today, the surgicenter’s unit-based team has gone green with a blue wrap recycling project that is not only saving money and protecting the environment, but also aiding the community. 

“The biggest problem with the blue wrap is when we throw it in the landfill, it’s there forever,” says Olmeda. “That’s a big concern especially considering how much blue wrap we use.” 

How recycling works

About 600 pounds of blue wrap is collected every week from the center’s six operating rooms. It is picked up free of charge and sorted by Goodwill of Orange County, which sells it to a Houston recycling services company. The company reprocesses the plastic into beads that are used in various products, including railroad ties, pallets and artificial siding for decks, docks and houses. 

The surgicenter has been recycling its blue wrap and plastic bottles since September 2009, reducing the facility’s solid waste disposal fee by 10 percent annually. The savings amount to a modest $5,880—but there’s a greater payoff. Proceeds from the sale of blue wrap and other recyclable products enable Goodwill to provide education and training programs for developmentally and physically disabled adults, including a state-of-the-art fitness center. 

Peter Bares, business development manager for Goodwill of Orange County, says the relationship with Kaiser Permanente has gone beyond expectations. “It is kind of the perfect storm because of the nature of what we do and why we do it and the materials that the hospital generates,” he says. 

Getting buy-in

As the frontline staff person responsible for the surgery center’s blue wrap disposal, Olmeda—and his fellow UBT members—championed the recycling cause, educating the staff at weekly in-services and UBT huddles.  The team got the rest of the department on board by integrating the blue wrap recycling process without creating additional tasks. 

“We figured if we changed workflows, staff wouldn’t want to do it.” says UBT co-lead Nicole Etchegoyen, a surgery scheduler and SEIU UHW steward. “But if we asked them, ‘How would this work best for you?’ then everyone would get involved, and they did.” 

The team members designated a single container for blue wrap in each operating room. They also placed a larger bin for collecting multiple bags of discarded blue wrap near the soiled utility room, where the trash is taken on its way out of the surgery center. 

“It’s not a big deal,” EVS worker and SEIU UHW member George Sollars said, hoisting bags. “We just carry it over here on our way out this door. It’s one of the easiest jobs. And it’s for a really good cause.” 

No trash, just recycling 

The hardest part was making make sure that other trash didn’t make it into the blue wrap recycling containers accidentally. Labeling the containers with signs reading ‘Recycling Blue Wrap Only’ helped, as did regular reminders by UBT members. 

Now, everyone in the operating rooms—from doctors, nurses and surgical techs to nursing assistants and EVS workers—makes sure that the blue wrap containers aren’t contaminated with other trash, Etchegoyen says. 

Olmeda does periodic spot checks. “Everybody who plays a role in the operating room has to look out to make sure no trash is going inside the containers,” he says. “It’s a team-building thing.” 

“If it wasn’t for the UBT, this wouldn’t be happening,” said Ramin Zolfagar, MD, department head and UBT member. “We are helping the environment by ‘going blue,’ so to speak, and the end result is gym equipment for the disabled—which makes it all the more worthwhile.” 

After learning about the project at a recent Orange County UBT fair, other departments are thinking about emulating it. 

Visit the Goodwill of Orange County website to find out more about their work.