Lifting the physician voice to improve Kaiser Permanente and health care

With the support of Federation teams to bring the Permanente Medical Groups together, the PMGs continued to evolve workforce policies, practices, training, and communications to support an inclusive, fair, and open access to opportunities across all the medical groups, enabling physicians and staff to thrive.

The Federation also partnered with Kaiser Foundation Health Plan National Security Services and Permanente Medical Group leaders to integrate physician input and help align and shape enterprise security policies, practices, and priorities — strengthening protection and safety for clinicians and staff.

Advancing Permanente Medicine

The Federation External Affairs, Communications, and Brand (EACB) team played a major role in informing the PMGs and their physicians about ongoing shifts in federal policies, from vaccines to gender-affirming care. The team provided more than 18 physician FAQs and 7 leadership communications to support PMG operations.

EACB also continued to showcase PMG physician leaders in 2025, including all-PMG communications featuring Federation co-CEOs Maria Ansari, MD, FACC, and Ramin Davidoff, MD, who updated the PMGs about key priorities of the executive medical directors, including why physicians should play active roles in commercial membership growth.

The co-CEOs also took a step forward in externally facing thought leadership pieces on the topic of value-based care, co-authoring 2 articles together in Becker’s Hospital Review and Harvard Business Review.

Other Permanente physician leaders were featured in top-tier news outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, STAT, and Newsweek, as well as being recognized for their work by a variety of health and industry trade outlets.

The Federation’s original programming — from the Permanente Medicine Docs Chat to the Permanente Medicine Podcast to the Permanente Live webinars — drove strong growth on YouTube with steadily increasing views and expanding subscribers from 1,000 to more than 10,000 by year’s end.

Several PMG leaders were also honored in several national lists, including Dr. Ansari in the 2025 Modern Healthcare 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives; Dr. Davidoff as one of The CEO Forum’s Top 10 CEOs Transforming Healthcare in America; and Drs. Ansari, Nolan Chang, Nkem Chukwumerije, Davidoff, Nancy Gin, Brian Hoberman, Leong Koh, and Stephen Parodi who were all named to the 2025 Becker’s Hospital Review Great Leaders in Healthcare honorees.

A constant flux of health care policymaking and its resulting challenges to public health made for an active year for the organization’s Government Relations teams. Year-round advocacy engagement included a Washington D.C. fly-in event that included all 8 Permanente Medical Groups and their leaders. Executive medical directors and physician Government Relations leaders met with 30 Congressional offices to advocate for the responsible use of AI to reduce administrative burden and enhance care quality, expanding health care workforce programs and alleviating physician shortages, and extending the enhanced premium tax credits (ePTCs) to maintain patient access to care.

Throughout the year, the Federation Government Relations team advanced the EMDs’ policy priorities using a wide-ranging approach that included meetings with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services officials and a record-setting Permanente Action grassroots campaign to protect Medicaid and ePTCs.