The next chief executive of Kaiser Permanente?

For the past few weeks, I have been looking at a few of the potential candidates who could succeed George Halvorson and get Kaiser Permanente back on track. Each candidate so far has been from outside the organization. Today, though, I’m going to talk about Bernard Tyson, who is effectively the chief operating officer of Kaiser Permanente (officially, executive vice president for Health Plan and Hospital Operations).

Mr. Tyson is probably best known inside the organization for leading the development of the Thrive campaign. While his most recent position was a marketing one, he served in a number of hospital administration positions for his first decade with Kaiser Permanente.

Inside the organization, there are questions as to why Mr. Tyson was not actually named COO last year. The title was eliminated by Mr. Halvorson in 2002, just weeks after he was hired. (Power sharing issues, anyone?) Nevertheless, inside the organization Mr. Tyson is well liked, not only for his work on the Thrive campaign but for his honest efforts to address hospital operations issues over the past two years.

Despite that, so far this year, nearly $100 million has been cut from health plan and hospital capital spending, and the serious kidney transplant fiasco happened under Mr. Tyson’s watch (in his old stomping grounds of San Francisco, nonetheless). Mr. Halvorson even went as far as to essentially recently blame Mr. Tyson and two of his colleagues for the mess. (One of Mr. Halvorson’s more controversial claims.)

It’s difficult to accept that any of the senior management of Kaiser Permanente would be able to be fully objective as to the damage Mr. Halvorson has done to the organization. But if the Board is indeed interested in trying to protect its reputation, perhaps it would go with a safer, inside candidate like Mr. Tyson to prevent the appearance of throwing the baby out with the bath water. We shall see.