Spokane Trends Newsletter

Indicators In The News

Spokane Trends Has A New Look

While the web design is new, many of the functions you have become familiar have not changed. For example, the ability to switch views from the county to the Cities of Spokane and Spokane Valley work the same. The “More Information” and “Download Data” sections work exactly as the previous...

Men & Women, Money & Work

Based on data, we know the "typical" U.S. male worker earns more than the "typical" U.S. female worker employed in the same occupation. What is typical? What can drilling deeper into a variety of different occupations and educational attainment levels tell us? Looking at the gender income gap occupation by occupation...

New State Financial Intelligence Tool

The Office of the Washington State Auditor has a new tool for Mr. and Mrs. John Q. and Martha Q. Public to go for government financial accountability information called the Finance Intelligence Tool (FIT). This data has always been (and still is) available through the Local Government Financial Reporting...

Water Use: Dry Summers Increase Demand

Spokane County sits upon one of the greatest resources needed for human survival, water. The Spokane Valley-Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer contains roughly 10 trillion gallons, covering about 370 square miles...

Low Supply of Homes For Sale in All Price Ranges

It is not an understatement to claim the housing market in Spokane County is a seller’s market. Primarily, these market conditions are due to low inventory and high demand. The low inventory of homes...

Opioid Prescription Rate Higher than State

Every indicator on the Trends site tells a story about what is happening locally. When possible, it is accompanied by a state and U.S. benchmarks, primarily offered to provide context to local local data. Benchmarks...

Kelly Stanford

Vice President of Clinical Operations & Market Integration, Kaiser Permanente

Q1. It’s been over two years since Kaiser Permanente purchased Group Health. What, if anything, has changed for the company’s Spokane presence?

A1. Spokane is a priority market for Kaiser Permanente Washington. We have created a long-term strategic plan that includes growth in services, growth in the number of patients we serve, and our continued commitment to the health of the Spokane community. In our first two years, we’ve focused on improved service to our members as well as deepening our commitment to the communities we serve. Here are some examples. By leveraging the knowledge and resources now available to us through Kaiser Permanente, we’ve been able to make improvements to our facilities for a better patient experience and empower our staff by offering new opportunities and resources to them. Kaiser Permanente’s Thriving Schools initiative has been activated in Spokane – bringing educational theatre programs to our middle schools, offering ‘Buddy Benches’ to our local elementary schools, and providing funding to efforts like the Spokane County Threat Assessment Cooperative to enable our school districts to work with community agencies to better address needs of our students.