After a literal trial-by-fire start last year to her tenure as president of Kaiser Permanente Southern California and Hawaii, Michelle Gaskill-Hames is now focusing on growing the giant hospital system’s facilities and services throughout her territory, including the greater San Fernando Valley region.
Kaiser Permanente, with 10,500 workers stationed in the greater San Fernando Valley area, was second only to the Walt Disney Co. on the Business Journal’s list of largest private sector employers in the Valley area, published last August. It operates large medical centers in Woodland Hills and Panorama City in addition to a number of smaller offices and facilities in the Conejo, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys.
Recently, Kaiser Permanente has opened a new surgery center and medical office space in Lancaster, new space in Woodland Hills for behavioral health treatment and expanded emergency service and imaging capabilities at its Panorama City medical center. And on the horizon is a new medical laboratory in Santa Clarita.
These are all part of the Oakland-based health system’s $290 million investment over the last five years in the Greater San Fernando Valley region.
“We are committed to continuing to serve our members with high quality services across the Valley,” Gaskill-Hames says. “We have our energy solely focused on growth and improving the member experience.”
Hawaii wildfires
Gaskill-Hames was named interim president for Kaiser Permanente’s Southern California and Hawaii region in April of last year and full-time president in September. She replaced Julie Miller-Phipps, who retired after seven years in the post. Gaskill-Hames oversees nearly 78,000 employees who collaborate with more than 8,000 Kaiser Permanente Medical Group physicians to deliver care to roughly 4.8 million members through 15 hospitals and 236 medical offices in Southern California, as well as another 268,000 members in Hawaii.
Prior to this post, Gaskill-Hames held several executive positions with Kaiser Permanente, primarily in Northern California. Before joining Kaiser in 2016, she served in several executive posts at other hospitals, most notably at Northwestern Memorial HealthCare in the Chicago area.
Just three months after being named interim president for Kaiser Permanente Southern California and Hawaii, devastating wildfires broke out around the town of Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui. With much of the island paralyzed for months, Gaskill-Hames had to lead the effort to ensure all of Kaiser Permanente’s facilities remained operational, which meant bringing in more resources from outside, including a mobile care vehicle from California.
New Lancaster Surgery Center
That effort understandably diverted some attention from all of the growth initiatives that Gaskill-Hames had to oversee in Southern California, including the Greater San Fernando Valley region.
One of the biggest efforts has been the leasing and opening of 12,532 square feet of surgery center space in a building in Lancaster. Kaiser Permanente assumed the lease in February and spent four months getting the center ready.
Up until now, Kaiser Permanente has had only medical office space in the Antelope Valley – though that space is substantial at roughly 290,000 square feet across four sites. If Kaiser members in the area needed surgery, they either had to go to other Kaiser medical centers in the county or to non-Kaiser hospitals in the Antelope Valley.
“This allows us for the first time to have our own surgical facility in the Antelope Valley,” Gaskill-Hames says.
The surgery center, which opened in June, is only for scheduled surgical procedures; emergency surgeries must still be handled by nearby non-Kaiser hospitals.
Other facility enhancements
Over the last 18 months, Kaiser has added several services to its Panorama City and Woodland Hills hospitals. Among these are an expansion of the emergency department at Panorama City with new triage rooms and imaging equipment as well as a new neurology center at Woodland Hills that includes an outpatient clinic.
Also in Woodland Hills, Kaiser Permanente last year opened a 15,000-square-foot behavioral health facility at a separate location from the hospital. Gaskill-Hames says that opening this center means members no longer have to travel to Kaiser Permanente’s regional flagship hospital in East Hollywood.
Finally, Gaskill-Hames says Kaiser Permanente is working to open a new regional medical laboratory in Santa Clarita late next year. Kaiser has leased a 223,000-square-foot building for the lab. A Kaiser spokesman says details on the lab were still being worked out, including whether the lab would be accessible for members or whether it would be more of a back-office operation for lab technicians.
“It will serve as an integral part of our regional lab network, enhancing our capabilities and service offerings for our members in the Santa Clarita Valley,” spokesman Terry Kanakri says.
Beyond these measures, Gaskill-Hames says Kaiser Permanente is evaluating whether to open more health clinics in outlying neighborhoods in coming years.
“Our members have indicated they want convenience and ease in accessing the health system’s facilities,” she says. “We’re constantly looking at ways to make what’s big feel small.”