Q&A: Kaiser Permanente's Next CEO Talks Strategy

HLM: Can you be more specific on what you think might need attention as we move forward into FY 2014 and beyond?

BT: We're continuing to build on our agenda of coordinating care and in particular, for our chronic care patients, we are learning a lot and teaching a lot. And the ability to better coordinate the different resources that our members need with chronic care diseases has allowed us to learn much, and drive to better affordability. 

In our hospitals we're tackling sepsis care and many of the issues that plague hospitals across America. As a result, we have some of the safest hospitals across the country. And we're continuing to build on that agenda.

Now that we have all our members on electronic medical records and all our hospitals wired with health information, we are learning a lot about the incredible power that comes from good data, in which we can access, monitor and look at how we're providing care to the millions of people that we are privileged to take care of.

One recent example is the Five Star program with Medicare. We are privileged that for the next cycle, for the next year, seven of our eight plans received the five stars, and our eighth region is 4.5 stars. I think that's one example of being able to improve quality and monitor quality and really demonstrate for the five-star program that we're a Five Star plan.