Garfield Memorial Fund Weight Management Initiative

Kaiser Permanente and its Garfield Memorial Fund have joined efforts to help find effective solutions to the obesity epidemic by funding eight research and demonstration studies. These innovative studies include a family-based intervention for children, a study to develop a registry for bariatric surgical patients, a weight maintenance program for graduates of youth weight loss programs, a culturally adapted weight loss program for African American women, and a program to help obese patients avoid knee surgery. The multi-year studies will be conducted in Northern and Southern California, Colorado, Georgia, Mid-Atlantic States, Ohio, and the Northwest. These studies will help lay an evidence-based foundation for developing, evaluating and sharing proven models of obesity prevention and treatment. GMF Weight Management Initiative provides the opportunity to leverage KP’s unique strengths to benefit our members, their communities and society at large. KP’s coordinated delivery system links clinicians, nutritionists, educators and patients over decades of life through information systems and population care management. By adapting this model of care, KP might be able to succeed at weight loss and weight maintenance where others have been unsuccessful.

Research funded by the Garfield Memorial Fund WMI complements the KP Care Management Institute’s Weight Management Initiative, which already has defined areas of focus and established weight management goals; identified existing regional programs; created clinical tools; and organized community and public policy outreach efforts. These focus areas include pediatric overweight, adult primary prevention, medical management for patients with comorbidities, and bariatric surgery. The Sidney A. Garfield Memorial Fund encourages innovation and exploration into new models of care developed by Kaiser Permanente employees and Permanente physicians that will result in improved health care for Kaiser members, as well as for the community-at-large. The findings from research sponsored by this initiative will help bring into focus the best ways to promote healthy eating and active living, thereby lessening the burden of disease and disability caused by obesity, and ensuring a healthier, more fulfilling future for millions of people.