Kaiser Permanente Northern California 2023 Community Health Snapshot
Working together for better health
Our commitment to improving the health of the communities we serve has been integral to Kaiser Permanente’s nonprofit mission for nearly 80 years. It’s in our DNA, extending from our leadership to our frontline medical center employees and to the many partnerships we’ve established to address complex health needs throughout our Northern California communities.
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In 2023, we invested $1.3 billion in a wide array of programs and charitable causes that improve community health. Through our Medical Financial Assistance program, 98,000 of our patients received financial help to pay for surgeries, prescriptions, and other care. We launched a charitable health coverage program for people unable to obtain health insurance anywhere else. And when federal pandemic policies ended, we swiftly supported community partners to help Californians remain on Medi-Cal or find other affordable health coverage.
We’re proud of several significant contributions we made demonstrating our commitment to the City of Oakland, home to our national headquarters. We renewed our long-term investment in the health of Oakland public school students, families, and staff; funded an expansion of Community Kitchens to provide meals to Oakland’s most vulnerable residents; and supported Rise East, a community initiative to improve economic vitality and health for East Oakland residents.
Our investments also helped expand groundbreaking work in California, including Abundant Birth’s program to tackle income inequality and its effect on racial disparities in maternal and child health.
Our work with our steadfast community partners and our dedicated employees and physicians inspires us. We thank you for joining us as we strive to make our Northern California communities healthier and more equitable for everyone.
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Carrie Owen Plietz, FACHE President
Kaiser Permanente Northern California
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals
Yvette Radford Vice President
External and Community Affairs
Kaiser Permanente Northern California
Improving access to care
In 2023, we expanded the number of patients we helped through our Medical Financial Assistance program and made significant investments to improve our safety-net partners’ capacity to provide quality care to their patients. We also supported several programs to make it easier for people with low incomes to get no cost or affordable health care, including our new Community Health Care Program.
Kaiser Permanente’s Community Health Care Program fills a critical gap for those that are not eligible for another coverage program. It’s a really wonderful option that we can offer our community members.” -Kelly Bennett, CEO, Community HealthWorks
Health care for people who can’t get covered
Kaiser Permanente’s Community Health Care Program offers comprehensive coverage with no monthly premiums and no out-of-pocket costs for most services. It was created for Californians with low incomes who can’t get health care coverage anywhere else.
Strengthening community mental health
With an ongoing shortage of mental health professionals and high community need for their services, we supported programs to increase access to care, particularly for young people and vulnerable individuals. We expanded the pool of diverse mental health professionals, training 204 doctoral and master’s level professionals through Kaiser Permanente’s Mental Health Training Program. We also supported community mental health training programs like the one at the Instituto Familiar de la Raza.
The help that Kaiser Permanente has offered us has been immensely helpful. It has allowed us to be competitive, to offer stipends to the interns, and also hire supervisors with expertise.”-Luis Perez Ramirez, Director of Clinical Services, Instituto Familiar de la Raza
Grant encourages long-running
therapist internship program
Instituto Familiar de la Raza’s Internship Training Program is a unique bilingual, multicultural mental health training program with a focus on serving San Francisco’s Chicano, Latino, and Indigena population.
Supporting economic opportunities
A steady job and income help people afford the essentials for good health. We focused on communities lacking economic opportunities and contributed to organizations that support college and career readiness, quality jobs, and diverse small business growth. We also invested in our KP Launch program, which provides diverse high school and college students with paid internships at Kaiser Permanente.
Once I got into the internship program, and I got to see what leadership is like in the hospital, it really opened my eyes for me, and it’s definitely something that I want to pursue now.”-Keoni Fatanum, college intern, KP Launch
Introducing health care careers to young people
In 2023, more than 280 talented high school and college students took part in KP Launch, a Kaiser Permanente program that’s building a pipeline of diverse health care leaders to better meet the needs of Northern California communities.
Helping people meet basic needs
Too many people in the communities we serve can’t afford the basics to be healthy. Through our impact investments and charitable contributions, we preserved or produced nearly 600 units of affordable housing, supported medical respite care for unhoused people needing a safe place to recover from illness, and engaged legal aid organizations to prevent people from becoming homeless. We also supported multiple food banks to help meet rising demands.
The support we receive from Kaiser Permanente has been instrumental in helping us to meet the needs of the communities we serve. We have the same goal, and that is to help our community to be healthy and thrive.” -Chelo Gonzalez, Director of Programs, Food Bank of Contra Costa & Solano
Feeding a need
When the Food Bank of Contra Costa & Solano continued to see an increased need for food after the pandemic, Kaiser Permanente stepped in to help.
Communities we serve
- Go to the Central Valley Community
- Go to the Diablo Community
- Go to the East Bay Community
- Go to the Fresno Community
- Go to the Golden Gate Community
- Go to the Greater Sacramento Community
- Go to the Greater Southern Alameda Area Community
- Go to the Napa/Solano Community
- Go to the San Mateo County Community
- Go to the Santa Rosa Community
- Go to the South Bay and Central Coast Community
By the numbers
Hospitals
Health Plan
$1.3B
2023 Northern California
total community investment
$832M
Medi-Cal and other
government programs
$287M
Charitable health
coverage and care
$97M
Health professions
education
*As reported to the State of California in the Kaiser Foundation Hospitals 2023 Community Benefit Plan.
$47M
Grants and donations
$33M
Research
$12M
Other
$47M
In grants and donations
3,943
Employee and physician
volunteers put in
32,602
hours
98K
Patients received
Medical Financial Assistance
204
Doctoral and master’s level trainees
in our Mental Health Training Program
415
People trained at
our School of Allied
Health Sciences
1,657
Medical residents trained
in our Graduate Medical
Education programs
$1.7M
In employee and corporate
donations to nonprofits
through KPGives