From San Francisco Business Times:
by Chris Rauber
Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California region has tapped a replacement for Michael Alexander to head the giant health system’s San Francisco Medical Center and affiliated operations.
Christine Robisch, formerly a senior executive in Kaiser’s Walnut Creek-based Diablo service area, has been named senior vice president and area manager for San Francisco, senior Kaiser Northern California officials said in a memo distributed internally late last month.
She started the job July 3, which Oakland-based officials said would give her time to train with Alexander “before he begins his retirement.”
Robisch was not immediately available for comment.
Alexander, 55, announced June 21 that he will retire after 34 years with Kaiser. That announcement came on the heels of public, media and regulatory scrutiny of serious problems at Kaiser’s Northern California kidney transplant unit, located within its San Francisco medical center. It came just seven weeks after news accounts in the Los Angeles Times and on KPIX TV Channel 5 put a spotlight on those problems, including botched paperwork, long delays in matching end-stage kidney patients with transplants and related management issues.
Kaiser agreed in May to close the unit and to transfer about 2,000 patients awaiting transplants to programs at University of California, San Francisco, and UC Davis medical centers, which had handled kidney transplants for Kaiser before it decided to bring them in-house in late 2004.
Kaiser is being investigated by several federal and state agencies regarding the kidney-transplant unit, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the state Department of Managed Health Care.
Why does her name sound familiar?