Growth is CEO's diagnosis for Temple health system

Larry Kaiser, at the helm of Temple University Health System in North Philadelphia for a year, is crafting a bold plan to steer the organization out of the financial morass of being Philadelphia's unofficial public hospital for the poor. So far, he has engineered the $83.8 million purchase of the Fox Chase Cancer Center and overseen the opening of an outpatient facility in Oaks that is drawing suburban patients with better-paying insurance and has treated 40 percent more patients than budgeted. Kaiser has also recruited more than a dozen high-profile physicians to Temple University Hospital, with a focus on innovative surgeons expected to fill the operating rooms with patients from outside Temple health's core North Philadelphia market.