After leading MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center for 24 years, Marcia Manker is retiring as chief executive at the end of the month.
She will be succeeded by Emily Randle, who has served as the hospital’s chief operating officer since 2012.
The transition is part of a succession plan launched last April, when Shela Kaneshiro became CEO of MemorialCare Saddleback Medical Center, succeeding Manker, who had overseen both hospitals since 2016.
“Marcia has mentored me for many years, and I know I was part of her succession plan for quite a while,” Randle told the Business Journal. “She has always made sure, as well as other leaders in the organization, that I had ample opportunity to learn the things that I needed to learn for this role being in my future.”
Orange Coast and Saddleback Medical Center are part of MemorialCare, a multibillion-dollar nonprofit healthcare system with four hospitals and more than 200 care sites.
The two hospitals rank as the eighth- and ninth-largest hospitals in Orange County, with net patient revenue of $529.6 million and $437.6 million, respectively, for the year ended Sept. 30.
“This leadership transition is the result of the very thoughtful and deliberate succession planning process that the MemorialCare Board of Directors and I have been working on for many years which helps ensure MemorialCare’s operational continuity, talent retention, and cultural preservation,” Barry Arbuckle, CEO of the MemorialCare Health System, told the Business Journal.
Hospital Transformation Under Manker
Under Manker, Orange Coast Medical Center shifted from a single-payer hospital to offering comprehensive inpatient and outpatient services to the entire community.
Orange Coast was originally part of FHP International Corp. and served only members of that health plan, which is now part of Minnesota’s UnitedHealth Group Inc.
There have been two major campus expansions during her tenure, including a $50 million six-story outpatient facility that opened in 2009, which now serves as the hospital’s front entrance.
Last July, Orange Coast announced it was expanding its critical care unit by adding seven new beds, bringing its total to 28 to meet growing patient demand.
In the past five years, the hospital has experienced a 65% increase in visits, treating more than 48,000 patients, according to MemorialCare.
Meanwhile, Saddleback Medical Center has expanded its cardiothoracic program within its first year under Kaneshiro, who previously served as chief clinical transformation officer and chief nursing officer at Orange Coast.
In May, the hospital welcomed two new surgeons to its program, Dr. Asad Shah and Dr. Timothy Lee, and acquired new da Vinci robotic technology to assist with surgery.
New CEO ‘Rooted in Patient Care’
Randle said that one of the biggest benefits of the leadership transition for the physicians and staff is the “sense of stability.”
“They know me, I know them and we all have the community’s best interest at heart,” she said.
Randle moved to California from Texas more than 40 years ago.
Clinically trained as a physical therapist, Randle graduated from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. She said that she developed a strong attraction to physical therapy, sparked by childhood visits to nursing homes with her mother.
“I think it informs all that I do as an executive because my roots are in patient care,” Randle said.
Prior to MemorialCare, she held positions at MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center and St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach.
“I was returning to the Memorial system, which was great for me,” Randle said.
Randle has been at Orange Coast for 23 years and served as vice president of operations before becoming COO in 2012.
No Major Changes
Randle doesn’t plan to make any significant changes as CEO.
She said that she intends to keep the hospital on its “solid path” of investing in core services such as the emergency department and cardiovascular program.
“During COVID, we were so well supported by MemorialCare—the organization had all of the supplies we needed, and we were able to segregate patients and do a great job,” Randle said.
“I think a lot of the community found us back then, and we thought it would decrease after the pandemic, and that has not happened.”
In response to the increasing number of emergency room closures in California, which caused a 20% increase in hospital patient visits, Orange Coast doubled its emergency department to 11,400 square feet in 2019.
MemorialCare’s Heart & Vascular Institute provides a full range of services, from diagnostic and interventional catheterizations to open-heart surgery.
The program spans Orange Coast, Saddleback and Long Beach Medical Center, with Randle noting that Orange Coast alone performs nearly 300 open-heart and other interventional procedures each month.
“It rivals programs of academic institutions, so it’s really important for us to continue to grow and develop that program further,” Randle said.
Randle said her current focus is securing approval from the Fountain Valley Planning Commission to redevelop a 2.23-acre surface parking lot to make way for a three-story parking structure that would provide 784 parking spaces for hospital employees only.
“We have grown so fast and furiously that we don’t have adequate parking,” Randle said.
“Even though we have five valet stations and all kinds of strategies to help with parking, we want to make the experience as stress-free as possible when people come for health care.”
On the clinical side, the hospital aims to strengthen its maternal and child health program as well as its Neurosciences Institute, according to Randle.
