Site for New Kaiser Permanente Medical School Announced

PASADENA, CA- Kaiser Permanente announced Thursday that the medical school it plans to open in 2019 will be built in Pasadena.

The Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine will be built at 94 S. Los Robles Ave. on land that Kaiser already owns, adjacent to the Kaiser Permanente Department of Research and Evaluation. Groundbreaking is planned for next year.

"Pasadena is a vibrant and diverse community," Kaiser Chairman and Chief Executive Bernard Tyson said in a statement issued from the healthcare giant's headquarters in Oakland. "That diversity is essential to the model of medical education we want to establish as we prepare physicians for the practice of medicine in the 21st century.”

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Kaiser said it chose central Pasadena because the site is close to major freeways, public transport, affordable housing, and within several miles of other Kaiser facilities where students will be trained.

Kaiser says medical education has been slow to move away from an approach centered on facilities and services and not sufficiently on mobile technology.

"Opening a medical school and influencing physician education is based on our belief that the new models of care mean we must re-imagine how physicians are trained," Tyson said in December, when plans for the medical school were first announced.

Kaiser also said in December that shifts in the U.S. population have created more diverse communities, requiring greater cultural competency and understanding, and that the future medical school will teach advanced skills in decision-making, teamwork, the use of technology, evidenced-based medicine and communication tailored to specific populations.

--City News Service, photo courtesy of the KaiserPermanente