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News release: Colorado - Denver/BoulderDecember 11, 2002 For more information, call: Kaiser Permanente physicians take bold step to solve nursing shortage issues Denver, CO – There's no pretending the current and projected nursing crisis doesn't exist. Physicians generally have been on the sidelines, watching rather than offering ideas to help solve the problem. The physician group that cares exclusively for Kaiser Permanente members is no longer sitting on that sideline. The Colorado Permanente Medical Group has launched a program to address the nursing shortage, including a $250,000 donation to fund nursing education. The CPMG program will focus on retention as well as recruitment. The goal is to ensure that every place where CPMG works there is an available supply of high quality, capable nurses. CPMG is promising an environment where nurses are included in care decisions, where doctors treat them as valued colleagues and where doctors are expected to be supportive partners. Today, the doctors donated $250,000 to the Saint Joseph Hospital Foundation to create a nursing education fund that will support and mentor nurses they hope will join Kaiser Permanente or work in one of their partner facilities. It's one of many steps the physician group is taking to provide solutions to the nursing shortage. The physician group has hired a project manager for community and nursing relations. She will be working directly with nursing organizations to create strategies for CPMG to follow as it strives to take on this physician leadership program. "As physicians we can sit on the sidelines and be 'victims' of the nursing shortage, or as physicians we can be leaders and the preferred clinical partner of nurses," said Jack Cochran, MD, CPMG's executive medical director. More than 700 physicians are members of the Colorado Permanente Medical Group. CPMG teams with the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan to create Kaiser Permanente, a non-profit health care organization that cares for 409,000 members in the six-county Denver metro area and in Colorado Springs. Its scores for clinical effectiveness placed it among the top 15 health plans in the nation, according to the National Committee for Quality Assurance's annual Health Care Quality Report. In the Denver metro area, care is provided by a coordinated team of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, dietitians, mental health counselors and physical therapists. In Colorado Springs, Kaiser Permanente cares for its members through an affiliated network of community-based physicians and other health care providers.
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