A Message to Our Vendor Community

DATE:         January 27, 2022

TO:              All Kaiser Permanente Suppliers and Vendors

FROM:        Laurel Junk, Senior Vice President, EBS – Market Operations Services/interim SVP, Chief Supply Chain and Procurement Officer

SUBJECT:   Kaiser Permanente Supplier/Vendor COVID-19 Booster Requirement for California health care workers

This notification is for all Kaiser Permanente suppliers and vendors. Please cascade and/or distribute this to appropriate leadership within your company to ensure compliance (e.g., CEO, CHRO, COO).  If you subcontract your services, please cascade this information to your subcontractors as well.  All vendors and suppliers will be held accountable for their employees and subcontractors complying with this new requirement.  

This message is a follow up to the https://supplier.kp.org/covid-19/messages/.

The state of California has extended the date for health care workers, including vendors and suppliers, to provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination and booster to March 1, 2022.

As a reminder, the state of California expanded the vaccination requirement to include boosters for workers in health care settings (e.g., general acute care hospitals, clinics and doctor offices, dialysis center, acute psychiatric hospitals).  Kaiser Permanente supports this order as the best way to protect our employees, physicians, patients, and communities from COVID-19.

Beginning March 1, all Kaiser Permanente vendors and suppliers are responsible for ensuring their vendor representatives (e.g., employees, subcontractors) who enter a KP health care facility in California can provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination and booster.  As of December 27, 2021, all California-based booster-eligible health care workers who have not yet received their booster must be tested for COVID-19 twice weekly for acute care settings or weekly for non-acute care settings.

Vendor representatives who are not immediately eligible for a booster will have 15 days to receive their booster vaccination once they become eligible. Those who previously qualified for a medical or religious exemption are not subject to the booster requirement but are still required to follow COVID-19 testing policies.

These requirements are evolving quickly, and we appreciate your support as we finalize further details in the coming weeks. Please check the KP Supplier website (https://supplier.kp.org) regularly, where we will post ongoing updates, including booster eligibility, testing requirements, and upcoming changes to the “vaccination confirmation stickers.”

Thank you, as always, for your ongoing support of Kaiser Permanente.