Marcus Iwane, MD, is the clinic chief of internal medicine at the West Oahu Medical Office at Kapolei of Kaiser Permanente Hawaii. In this edition of “What They’re Watching,” we hear from Iwane about how in addition to his clinical work as an internist, he helps develop Kaiser Permanente Hawaii’s overall approach to healthcare delivery, focusing the organization’s efforts to address the social determinants of health and consulting with community members on how to improve services.
He discussed some of Kaiser Permanente Hawaii’s main priorities at our recent 2023 Hawaii State of Reform Health Policy Conference.
“We’re really kind of looking at what we can do to get ahead of the [healthcare cost] curve, [such as] developing preventive programs so that we can start to change the needle or statistics in a way that patients view their own healthcare, really kind of giving them the empowerment to be their own leaders in their healthcare journey, and having us as a healthcare system support them in that process.”