Kaiser CEO to retire

Kaiser Permanente chairman and CEO George Halvorson will retire in December 2013.

“George Halvorson led Kaiser through some of the organization’s most significant changes, helping to create a dynamic institution respected, and some would say as it has grown, even feared, by many,”industry veteran Randy Vogenberg, PhD, principal, Institute for Integrated Healthcare in Sharon, MA; co-founder, Bentelligence; and former National Health Benefits thought leader for Aon Consulting, Chicago, ll., told MHE.“His vision for a truly integrated healthcare system has held up and is now a model for others to emulate. He’s left a tremendous imprint on the organization and it will be challenging to fill his shoes.”

Halvorson has served as chairman and CEO since 2002, and under his leadership Kaiser Permanente has grown to serve more than 9 million members, pioneered electronic health records (EHR), and is often seen as a model for the future of healthcare.

Halvorson led the decision to implement Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect, an enterprise-wide EHR system, a decade ago. Today, KP HealthConnect is the largest non-governmental system in the world, supporting the transformation of care delivery and connecting caregivers and patients in new and innovative ways. In the first 6 months of 2012, for example, members securely viewed 16.7 million laboratory results, exchanged 6.8 million emails with their Kaiser Permanente caregivers and refilled 5.6 million prescriptions online.

“Kaiser Permanente has been a great place to work for me,” Halvorson said in a Kaiser press release. “I have very much enjoyed the last decade. We have done a lot of good things and we continue to make progress in a lot of areas.”

During Halvorson’s tenure, Kaiser Permanente has become recognized as a national healthcare quality leader.

The Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Health Plan board of directors will now go through a process that will result in the selection of a successor as chair and CEO.