George C. Halvorson is chairman and chief executive officer of Kaiser Permanente, headquartered in Oakland, California. Kaiser Permanente is the nation’s largest nonprofit health plan and hospital system, serving more than 9 million members and generating nearly $50 billion in annual revenue.
Kaiser Permanente has been investing heavily in electronic medical records and physician support systems over the past five years. More than 9 million patients now have their records in the KP computers. The medical records are designed to provide real time information to the patients and physicians and to provide the tools to coordinate their care among doctors, nurses, and other caregivers.
Kaiser Permanente also is a leader in electronic connectivity between doctors and patients, with more than 12 million yearly "e-visits" chosen by patients instead of face-to-face clinical visits, and more than 100 million lab reports, test results and care updates sent to patients by their KP care team.
George Halvorson serves on the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Value & Science-Driven Health Care, the IOM Task Force on Making America a Learning Health Care Organization, the American Hospital Association’s Advisory Committee on Health Reform, the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System, and the New America Foundation Leadership Council. He serves on the boards of the National Committee for Quality Assurance, America’s Health Insurance Plans, and the Alliance of Community Health Plans. Halvorson chairs the International Federation of Health Plans and co-chaired the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Annual National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care for 2010. He is the 2012 social media chair for the Global Health Policy Forum. In 2009, he chaired the World Economic Forum’s Health Governors meetings in Davos. He has received the Modern Healthcare/Health Information and Management Systems Society CEO IT Achievement Award. The Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange also awarded him the 2009 Louis Sullivan Award for leadership and achievements in advancing health care quality.
Mr. Halvorson has written several health care reform books, including the recently released Health Care Will Not Reform Itself: A User's Guide to Refocusing and Reforming American Health Care. He also wrote Health Care Reform Now!, Health Care Co-ops in Uganda, Strong Medicine, and Epidemic of Care as guidebooks for health care reform.
Care improvement programs supported by the new Kaiser Permanente computer systems have reduced medical complications, improved heart disease survival rates, and significantly reduced the number of broken bones for Kaiser Permanente members.
Medical research supported by the Kaiser Permanente database has impacted the use of Vioxx, heart stents, various joint implants, and medical treatments for expectant mothers.
Kaiser Permanente is building one of the world’s largest DNA data sets for health care research, with more than 100,000 patient DNA samples.
Mr. Halvorson served as an advisor to the governments of Uganda, Great Britain, Jamaica, and Russia on issues of health policy and financing. His strong commitment to diversity and inter-ethnic healing has led him to his current writing project, a new book about racial and ethnic prejudice and intergroup conflict around the world.
Prior to joining Kaiser Permanente, Mr. Halvorson was president and chief executive officer of HealthPartners, headquartered in Minneapolis, for nearly 18 years. With more than 30 years of health care management experience, he has also held several senior management positions with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, and Health Accord International.