Studies of Women's Health Care: Selected Results

Introduction Not one to sit back as women’s health issues— “drive-by” deliveries and mastectomies—hit the front page, Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC) in 1996 formed its Women’s Health Task Force, a group of 20 physicians and staff selected for their expertise in women’s health. The Task Force accepted the challenge of developing both a rationale and a direction for changing KPNC’s system of delivering health care to its women members: The group recommended to the Board of Directors of TPMG that KP focus on becoming the premier provider of women’s health care in Northern California. To ensure that this goal would become reality, KP in 1997 appointed a women’s health leader and created Women’s Health-KP (Table 1). Women’s Health-KP addresses a spectrum of women’s health care needs which arise throughout life. Issues targeted by Women’s Health-KP include the leading causes of death among women as well as the societal influences and policies affecting women’s health. The ultimate goal of Women’s Health-KP is to improve the quality of health care services delivered to KP’s primary customers: women.