Chambliss served as president of the board of a Group Health Cooperative that had 290 physicians serving 255,000 enrollees in King, Snohomish, Pierce, Thurston, and Kitsap counties. In 1979 enrollment increased by 23,000. That year the Cooperative made a transition in patient care to a panel system in which each enrollee had a personal family physician. Appointment scheduling was decentralized and the consulting nurse service was expanded.
Ida Chambliss died of a heart attack on September 28, 1983, while in Zimbabwe performing humanitarian work for Africare. A month later Group Health dedicated the new Rainier Valley Medical Center, which Chambliss had worked hard to establish during her years on the board. Later Group Health organized the Ida Chambliss Memorial Health Team to carry on her work of aiding the poor in other nations.
