Our impact in the Northwest

News and perspectives on public policy in Oregon and Southwest Washington

Our impact in the Northwest

News and perspectives on public policy in Oregon and Southwest Washington

Founded in 1945, Kaiser Permanente of the Northwest is a nonprofit health plan and provider of care to 642,155 medical members and 291,131 dental members in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Headquartered in Portland, we are one of the largest private employers in Oregon and a leading voice with health care policy decision makers. We offer our perspective on policy debates and engage the public in these important issues to help us pursue our organization’s mission — to provide high-quality, affordable health care services and to improve the health of our members and communities. 

Our history in the Pacific Northwest began when Henry J. Kaiser and Sidney R. Garfield, MD, partnered to provide workers and their families with health care during the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam in northeastern Washington in the 1930s, and during WWII shipbuilding at the Kaiser Shipyards in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington. With the closing of the shipyards in 1945, enrollment in our health plan was opened to the community.

Issues

Kaiser Permanente in the Northwest

Kaiser Permanente’s presence throughout Oregon and southwest Washington positively impacts the lives of many more people than just our members, physicians, and employees. Through our care, hospitals, medical and dental buildings, and community investment, we are a major contributor to the Northwest economy. Kaiser Permanente’s contributions include:

  • More than $146 million in charitable and community health investments, including major efforts to help provide shelter and support for our homeless population
  • 2 hospitals, 52 medical offices, and 21 dental offices
  • 1,345 physicians, 150 dentists, 11,307 employees (including 9,780 union members)
  • Over $4.5 billion in annual revenue

Our care

Kaiser Permanente’s award-winning integrated model of care and coverage allows our physicians to coordinate care with our hospitals, specialists, and other services, so they are all working together to keep patients healthy and provide the best care when it’s needed. With health care, pharmacy, vision, lab, and other services provided seamlessly together, our model ensures convenience and affordability. It’s why we’re among the highest-ranked health plans in the Northwest.

  • Kaiser Permanente Northwest’s Medicare and commercial health plans are the highest-rated plans in quality and performance among health plans in Oregon and Washington, according to the National Committee for Quality Assurance’s Medicare Health Insurance Plan Ratings for 2019 to 2020 and NCQA’s Private Health Insurance Plan Ratings for 2019 to 2020. NCQA is widely recognized as the gold standard in evaluating quality and performance of health plans.
  • We have been ranked number one in customer loyalty for 9 years in a row by Satmetrix.
  • The Kaiser Permanente Northwest Center for Heart and Vascular Care, located at Kaiser Permanente Sunnyside Medical Center, is Oregon’s highest-rated heart program according to The Society of Thoracic Surgeons.
  • We have received Tier 4 Patient-Centered Primary Care Homes certification from the Oregon Health Authority for all our primary care medical offices according to their Patient Centered Primary Care Home standards. These standards of care include:
    • Accessibility: Care is available when patients need it
    • Accountability: Clinics take responsibility for their community and provide quality care
    • Comprehensive: Patients get comprehensive whole-person care, information, and services they need to stay healthy
    • Continuity: Providers know their patients and work with them to improve their health over time
    • Coordination: Clinics help patients navigate the health care system to get the care they need in a safe and timely way
    • Patient and family-centered: Patients and families are the most important part of the health care team; care should draw on a patient’s strengths to set goals, and communication should be culturally competent and understandable for all