Behavior medicine specialist.

Total Health is a vision for the future and a strategy to prevent preventable disease, save lives, and make health care more affordable. Total Health means health of mind (behavior health) and health of body (physical health). To achieve Total Health we need healthy people in healthy communities.

Prediabetes and lifestyle modification: time to prevent a preventable disease.

More than 100 million Americans have prediabetes or diabetes. Prediabetes is a condition in which individuals have blood glucose levels higher than normal but not high enough to be classified as diabetes. People with prediabetes have an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes.

Physician update: total health.

As an integrated prepaid health care system, Kaiser Permanente (KP) is in a unique position to demonstrate that affordability in health care can be achieved by disease prevention. During the past decade, KP has significantly improved the quality care outcomes of its members with preventable diseases. However, because of an increase in the incidence of preventable disease, and the potential long-term and short-term costs associated with the treatment of preventable disease, KP has developed a new strategy called Total Health to meet the current and future needs of its patients.

Choosing wisely and beyond: shared decision making and chronic kidney disease.

In 2012, the Kaiser Permanente Area Medical Directors of Quality decided to sponsor analytic activities to improve shared decision making for patients with chronic kidney disease. The objective was to move shared decision making for renal replacement therapy or maximal conservative management upstream rather than waiting until the patient presented to the emergency room requiring acute dialysis. Nephrologists have multiple opportunities to discuss treatment options with patients throughout the course of their disease.