Act of 1973. By August 1944, 92.2 percent of all Richmond shipyard employees had joined the plan, the first voluntary group plan in the country to feature group medical practice, prepayment and substantial medical facilities on a large scale. In part due to wartime materials rationing, Garfield's original field hospital was a single-story wood frame structure designed in a simple modernist mode. Intended for use primarily as an emergency facility, it opened with only 10 beds. Later additions increased its capacity to 160 beds by 1944. The Field Hospital operated as a Kaiser Permanente hospital until closing in 1995. As the war came to an end, the Bay Area shipyards were rapidly scaled back and closed. The health plan membership shrank precipitously. The caregiving staff was correspondingly reduced. At its nadir as few as a dozen medical doctors remained in the organization. New postwar industries, however, hired workers needing health care. New health plan participants were recruited and expanded to include workers' families as well. Garfield was instrumental in managing this dramatic transformation. He continued in this position into the late 1950s. By 1990, Kaiser Permanente was the country's largest nonprofit HMO. California Historical Landmark California Historical Landmark at the site 4300 Ragsdale Road, Desert Center, California reads: NO. 992 SITE OF CONTRACTOR'S GENERAL HOSPITAL - In 1933, Dr. Sidney R. Garfield opened Contractor's General Hospital six miles west of here. His modest facility successfully delivered health care to Colorado River Aqueduct workers through a prepaid insurance plan. Later, in association with industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, Dr. Garfield applied the lessons he first learned at the hospital to create his enduring legacy: Kaiser Permanente, the nation's largest nonprofit prepaid health care program. Further reading Debley, Tom. "Dr. Sidney R. Garfield, The Visionary who Turned Sick Care into Health Care", Permanente Press, 2009 Articles about Dr. Sidney Garfield at the Kaiser Permanente website References 1906 births 1984 deaths 20th-century American Jews 20th-century American physicians People from Elizabeth, New Jersey University of Iowa alumni