Kaiser Permanente plans to open a medical school in Southern California.
News reports said the hospital owner and health insurer would enroll the school’s first 50 students in 2019.
A factor in site selection is said to be proximity to its hospitals. Kaiser runs two hospitals in Orange County, in Anaheim and Irvine. Its HMO here is the largest in Orange County with 520,000 members.
The reports said Kaiser had met with medical education executives in recent weeks, and considered a partnership with an existing medical school, before deciding to open its own facility.
It plans to charge “comparable” tuition and recruit a high percentage of students from ethnic minority groups.
Kaiser is based in Oakland and more than three-fourths of its 10.2 million members are in California.
