More than 50 years ago, industrialist Henry Kaiser asked Dr. Sidney Garfield to provide quality health care to the Kaiser shipyard and steel workers. To this day, Kaiser Permanente remains a physician-driven health care organization dedicated to patients, not profits.
From its Depression-era beginnings in a 12-bed wood frame hospital in the middle of the California desert, Kaiser Permanente has grown into the world's oldest and one of the largest private non-profit integrated health systems. Today it serves 8.1 million members in 9 states and the District of Columbia. Its largest division is California, with more than 5 million members.
