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About Us

Harbor-UCLA Medical Center began as the station hospital at the Los Angeles Port of Embarkation. In June 1946, the United States Army sold the entire facility as war surplus to the Los Angeles County Department of Charities. Harbor General Hospital opened one month later with 60 beds and 70 employees. In 1951, Harbor General Hospital affiliated with the University of California as a teaching hospital for the UCLA School of Medicine. Following the passage of a bond issue in the mid 1950’s, a new eight story replacement facility opened in 1963. While the basic structure has changed very little since that time, there have been remodeling programs to keep the hospital current with changes in the medical practice. The Emergency Room has been enlarged and a number of special care units have been constructed from what were formerly ward rooms. In 1994, the 50,000 square foot Edward J. Foley Primary Care and Diagnostic Center was opened. Over the years the hospital and medical programs of the facility have grown and improved steadily.

Executive Leadership

Kim McKenzie was appointed in 2015 as the Interim Chief Executive Officer at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. She previously served as hospital’s Chief Nursing Officer and Chief Operations Officer and has worked for Harbor-UCLA since 2011. Prior to Harbor-UCLA, she was the Director of the Health Services’ Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Program, where she was responsible for the coordination of quality improvement, patient safety and clinical risk management activities across the Health Services health care delivery system.

Ms. McKenzie completed fellowships with the California Health Leadership College, and University Health System Consortium for Quality and Patient Safety. She is a certified professional in health care quality (CPHQ). Ms. McKenzie began her career as a pediatric critical care nurse at LA General Medical Center.

Anish Mahajan is Chief Medical Officer at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and Associate Dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. From 2012 through mid-2016, he was Director of System Planning, Improvement, & Data Analytics for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (Health Services), where he helped lead organizational transformation under the Affordable Care Act and oversaw multiple system-wide units including the Office of Planning & Data Analytics, Enterprise Health Information Management Division, and Section 1115 Medicaid Waiver performance improvement initiatives. Since 2014, Anish has also served as Chair of the Board of the Los Angeles Network for Enhanced Services (LANES), a 501(c)(3) organization that is establishing a Health Information Exchange. From 2009 to 2010, he served as a White House Fellow in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), where he was a special advisor to Director Peter Orszag. At OMB, he worked on health reform, rule development for the HITECH Act, and other health policy strategy and regulation.  Anish received a B.A. in Public Policy and M.D. from Brown University. He also earned a M.P.H. in Population Health from Harvard School of Public Health and M.S in Health Services from UCLA. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program at UCLA Medical Center.

Azar Kattan is the Chief Administrative Officer for Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.  Prior to working at Harbor, she served as the Compliance and Privacy Officer, as well as the Director of Licensing and Accreditation at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center.  During her tenure there, she was the administrator for Utilization Management, Environment of Care and the departments of medicine, psychiatry, and emergency medicine.  Before working at Olive View, she served as the Director of Operations for Health Services, where she had operational oversight of the Health Services hospitals, contracting, and capital projects.

Ms. Kattan began her career on Capitol Hill working on the House Ways and Means Committee, where she developed health and welfare legislation.  She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hamilton College in New York.  Ms. Kattan earned her Master’s Degree in Public Health from UCLA School of Public Health and her Juris Doctor from Southwestern Law School.

Nancy Blake PhD, RN, CCRN-K, NEA-BC, NHDP-BC, FAAN is the Chief Nursing Officer at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. She previously was the director of critical care services at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) for over 25 years where she helped CHLA achieve Magnet designation. Nancy has been an active member of SPN, ACNL, and AACN, where she was a national board member from 2003-2006. Most recently she was a panel member for ANA’s End Nurse Abuse Panel in 2018. She has also been part of many Los Angeles County EMS Agency committees including the Trauma Hospital Advisory Committee and the Bioterrorism Task Force that developed the Disaster Resource Centers in Los Angeles County. She is a national speaker on pediatric disaster preparedness and healthy work environments.

Nancy received her BSN from Mount Saint Mary’s College in Los Angeles, she received her MN from UCLA in Nursing Administration and most recently received her PhD in nursing at UCLA doing her dissertation on the Relationship between Healthy Work Environments (focusing specifically on communication, collaboration and leadership) and Patient Outcomes (risk adjusted length of stay, risk adjusted outcomes, and central line infections) and Nurse Outcomes (nurses’ intent to leave their organization). She was inducted as a fellow in the Academy of Nursing in 2013. She is an Assistant Adjunct Professor at UCLA School of Nursing.

Jody Nakasuji is the Chief Financial Officer for the Metrocare Region.  Her career with Los Angeles County has included key leadership positions including Metrocare Region Chief Financial Officer since 2007, Harbor-UCLA Chief Financial Officer from 2004-2006 and Harbor-UCLA Medical Center Controller/Expenditure Manager from 1990-2003.  She also worked for the Health Services Program, Audits & Reimbursement Division prior to joining the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center team.

Ms. Nakasuji is responsible for the Metrocare Region fiscal operations which includes accounting, budgeting, cost accounting, financial systems, audits, patient financial services, and business office operations.  She oversees a staff of 290 employees within the Finance Department.  Her Metrocare Region responsibilities encompass Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Martin Luther King, Jr. Outpatient Center, and five affiliated health centers.