Kaiser Permanente

American integrated health system based in Oakland, California, founded in 1945 out of the industrial health plans of Henry Kaiser and Sidney Garfield, made up of the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, the Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and the Permanente medical groups. Covers about thirteen million members across California and several other states and the District of Columbia, running its own hospitals, medical offices, laboratories and pharmacies, a large mail order pharmacy service and formulary and drug utilisation programmes, and carries out health services and clinical research through its research divisions.