Kaiser nurses protest CEO’s appearance at AHA Leadership Summit

Nurses say Kaiser exec is out of touch with bedside care

Registered nurses from Kaiser Permanente facilities across California protested today outside the American Hospital Association (AHA) Leadership Summit in Denver, Colo., where Kaiser CEO Greg A. Adams is scheduled to speak this week.

The nurses, represented by California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (CNA/NNOC/NNU), expressed dismay at Kaiser's accelerating reliance on untested technology in patient care, raising concerns that Kaiser executives are putting patients at risk to chase business trends.

"If technology like artificial intelligence has a place in patient care, it should be a place that nurses help figure out," said Terah Deason, RN in interventional radiology at Kaiser's Santa Rosa Medical Center. "But Kaiser has made clear that they have no qualms about replacing real human health care workers with this tech, and we can't standby silently while the impacts of those decisions affect our patients."

"Kaiser is one of the biggest and most influential health care systems in the country," said Natalie Rommel, RN at Kaiser's Roseville Medical Center. "That's the reason our CEO is speaking at this conference, and it's the reason why we have to demand better from them as the nurses at the bedside in Kaiser facilities."

According to the event's website, Adams is there to discuss "how promising ideas are turned into transformation at scale" with a "focus on moving from pilots to everyday practice" and "aligning people and technology to support care redesign." The appearance promises "practical insights" on "advancing innovation in ways that are scalable across diverse care settings."

Nurses say that kind of business-speak betrays Kaiser management's fundamental misunderstanding of the realities of patient care and protested to make their position known.

CNA represents more than 25,000 registered nurses at Kaiser facilities across the state of California.

California Nurses Association/National Nurses United is the largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses in the nation with more than 100,000 members in more than 200 facilities throughout California and more than 225,000 RNs nationwide.