Dr. Clifford Keene; Ex-Head of Kaiser-Permanente

Dr. Clifford H. Keene, 89, former head of Oakland-based Kaiser-Permanente Hospitals. Keene retired in 1975 as president and chief executive of the Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Health Plan after working with the pioneering health care organization for 20 years. He helped define and implement the delivery and payment for health care that became known as the “Kaiser experience.” The Kaiser system helped fuel the federal Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973 that encouraged nationwide development of HMOs. Born in Buffalo, N.Y., Keene worked his way through medical school at the University of Michigan as an ironworker. He served as an Army surgeon during World War II, earning the rank of lieutenant colonel. After working briefly as a Kaiser surgeon in Oakland after the war, Keene spent several years in Ann Arbor, Mich., teaching at the University of Michigan and as medical director of the Kaiser-Frazer automobile company. In 1954, industrialist Henry Kaiser persuaded him to return to Oakland to work with the then-struggling Kaiser health care system. Keene became regional manager of Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Health Plan in Northern California and by 1960 was a director, a vice president and general manager. He was named president in 1968. Three years later, Keene was one of the initial 110 members named to the new Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences. On Jan. 25 in Monterey, Calif., of Parkinson’s disease.