Sutter Health - Latter 20th Century

Latter 20th Century

Sutter Health was officially created in 1981 as a small Sacramento health care system. A few years earlier the organization had introduced a series of reforms in governance, communication and accountability in the wake of a late 1970s scandal involving William Miofsky, a physician who was charged with and pleaded no contest to felony charges of sexually abusing sedated Sutter hospital female patients.

Over the next 15 years, government cutbacks, the advent of managed care and other financial pressures fueled an increase in hospital and physician organization mergers, acquisitions and affiliations. By 1995 Sutter Health had grown to include 18 affiliated hospitals, seven medical foundations (physician organizations) and numerous outpatient care centers throughout Northern California.

Meanwhile, in the San Francisco Bay Area, another affiliation of hospitals was forming. By 1986, Pacific Presbyterian Medical Center in San Francisco, Mills-Peninsula Hospital in San Mateo and Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae had created an affiliation known as California Healthcare System (CHS). Berkeley-based Alta Bates Corporation (now known as Alta Bates Summit Medical Center) joined CHS in 1992, the same year that saw the creation of California Pacific Medical Center, formed through a merger of Pacific Presbyterian and Children's Hospital of San Francisco.

In January 1996, Sutter Health and California Healthcare System merged.