UCLA Medical Center Director Leaving Position
UCLA Medical Center Director Dr. Michael Karpf on Tuesday announced that he is resigning his position to become executive vice president of health affairs at the University of Kentucky Medical Center, the Los Angeles Times reports. Karpf, who has been head of the medical center since 1995 and oversaw the university's three hospitals and 18 primary care clinics, will be temporarily replaced by a staff member of the Hunter Group, a consultant firm that issued a "withering report" in March on UCLA Healthcare's finances, the Times reports (Hymon, Los Angeles Times, 9/3). The report recommended that the hospital system "substantially overhaul its unprofitable physician clinics and cut its workforce," that UCLA physicians be paid for increased productivity and that the hospital system reduce its supply costs, shorten patients' hospital stays and rework its billing practices (California Healthline, 3/17). Karpf has recently been criticized by nurses and physicians for accepting a salary bonus while overseeing job cuts at the medical center. Karpf insisted he was "absolutely not" forced to leave his position and that the University of Kentucky "made him an offer he couldn't refuse," the Times reports. The effective date of Karpf's resignation is not yet known (Los Angeles Times, 9/3).
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