Kaiser Permanente and the Alliance of Health Care Unions
LMPartnership.org

Understanding the Path to Performance

The Path to Performance provides a consistent way for unit-based teams to continually improve their teamwork and how they do their work. As teams become high performing, they tend to have fewer workplace injuries and better attendance, service scores and quality outcomes. Review this Path to Performance tool to learn about the expectations for each level and performance dimension.

Introduction to the Path

Take action and help your team move up the Path to Performance. Use the two rows of buttons below to access pages with recommended next steps, customized by team level and dimension. Use the first row to access tools for the level your team is at now. Use the second set to learn more about a particular performance dimension before moving on to specific ideas for each team level.

Start with your current team level:

Level 1
Pre-Team Climate
Level 2
Foundational
Level 3
Transitional
Level 4
Operational
Level 5
High-Performing

Or, start with a performance dimension:

Sponsorship
Sponsorship
Sponsors are the go-to people for UBT co-leads, providing resources, guidance and oversight. Effective sponsorship is a key ingredient in moving a team to high performance.
Leadership
Leadership
Stepping up as a leader of your department’s unit-based team—as a UBT co-lead or a UBT health and safety champion—means you’ll be guiding the team to make your department a great place to work and to receive care.
Training
Training
It's important for unit-based team members, co-leads and sponsors to build the skills that are essential to working in partnership and creating a collaborative, high-functioning team. Trainings cover areas such as problem solving, decision making and performance improvement.
Team Process
Team Process
UBTs use processes designed to enhance communication, participation and teamwork, like outcome-oriented meetings and frequent huddles. They also regularly analyze data to make sure their improvement efforts are on track.
Team Member Engagement
Team Member Engagement
Active unit-based team members speak up with their best ideas for departmental improvements, and they use partnership processes like interest-based problem solving to make their unit a great place to work.Teams function best when all team members are involved.
Use of Tools
Use of Tools
Unit-based teams use tools like the Rapid Improvement Model, process mapping and waste walks to identify changes they want to make in their departments and and then test their ideas out to see if they work.
Goals and Performance
Goals and Performance
UBTs use the Value Compass, which puts the member at the center of every decision, to focus the team’s projects on achieving the highest quality, the best service, the most affordable care and the best place to work.

Right Team, Right Tool, Right Test

Armed with data and a method for change, the Santa Clara Women's Clinic UBT significantly reduced lab specimen errors that plagued their department. This short video tells their story of sustaining change.

Giving Bad Joints the Boot

The best place to recover from joint replacement surgery is at home. A team of nurses, physicians, physical therapists and pharmacists in Southern California is making that happen by working together to reduce the amount of time patients spend in the hospital after surgery.

Inventing Better Care

This short video explains what unit-based teams are and shows how they're making Kaiser Permanente a better place to work and receive care.

UBT BASICS

Unit-Based Team Overview
UBTs are a way to improve care by tapping into the knowledge and experience of frontline staff, managers and physicians.
UBT Roles
Everyone on a team has a part to play. Learn what you need to do to make your UBT strong.
What Is the Path to Performance?
What does it mean to be a Level 1 team, or a Level 5? Get an overview of what it takes to become high performing.
Performance Improvement Methods
Be the best at getting better—it's easier than you think! Find out about PI, RIM, PDSA and more.

ALPHABET SOUP

1
CDM

Consensus Decision Making

2
IBPS

Interest-Based Problem Solving

3
LMP

Labor Management Partnership

4
UBT

Unit-Based Team

5
RIM

Rapid Improvement Model

6
PDSA

Plan, Do, Study, Act

7
WPS

Workplace Safety

8
P2P

Path to Performance

9
PI

Performance Improvement

10
IA

Improvement Advisor

UBT Tracker