Kaiser Permanente Walnut Creek Medical Center

Appointment was 3:50. Sitting here at 4:44 (still no sign of doctor). I usually go to Oakland but recently moved to WC and have been sick for 2 weeks and they had an open appointment today. So, here I sit, pregnant, hacking and blowing my nose and it’s almost an hour past my appointment time. This sucks.

Review #097 — 2016
I’ve been coming to Kaiser Walnut Creek for about three or four years now and I haven’t had any bad experience.
Although, my biggest complaint would have to be the parking situation. I have never been able to find parking in less than five minutes no matter what time of day & there are four floors of parking available.
However, I’ve always been able to get an appointment with my regular doctors quickly and never have to wait more than 15 minutes to be seen.
Dr. Dewalt is very sweet & a great listener. I never feel rushed. Her staff members are all very friendly and accommodating.
I’ve also used the lab services many times here and all their staff members are great as well. Not that it’s ever fun to get your blood drawn, but it’s nice that they are friendly.
I’m glad that I moved closer to Walnut Creek so I can continue to visit this location.

This is the worst Kaiser location. I always have problems getting prescriptions filled. I have tried a couple of doctors as well and both with bad results. I can only imagine the horror if I ended up here in an emergency. Do not come here is you feel it will be convenient. You will end up having to got to another Kaiser location anyway. Not sure why prescriptions are special order when it is a med that cannot be skipped. They also have some very homophobic staff here in walnut creek. Just make the trip to Oakland to avoid wasted time.

Cassandra did my CT scan and she made me feel so comfortable especially putting this IV in me which she explained makes the body hot. She stood right by me the whole time to take my worries away. I’ll be back soon I’m sure but this Kaiser everyone is so helpful. Even the girl at the desk was polite had a big smile and helped me to where I needed to go. Next visit I will update my review.
Came here again today for my biopsy and Dr. Chin is a great surgeon/​doctor he was so gentle with the shots and even came down to see how I was doing.

I was a patient at the L&D deparment for a false alarm last week and I just want to say that all the nurses and drs were awesome they really know their stuff and made sure that I was informed of everything going on. They also made sure I was as comfortable as possible during my stay. My plan was to deliver at the Antioch kiaser but after being at the L&D at walnut Creek I would rather deliver my baby there. Thank you to all the staff your attention was highly appreciated.

If your going here for pregnancy Ask for Dr. Phan she is the best doctor!!! She’s made everything so perfect for me on my first baby!!! Very grateful for her!!!

Unbelievably horrible experience at Kaiser Walnut Creek ER right now. My mother is in extreme pain and incoherent. We’ve been waiting over an hour to see a doctor. RN Alex Pasini has been extremely condescending. Still waiting for Dr. Weingarten. @kpmemberservice
We’re Latino and we’re not well dressed for this ER visit but it doesn’t give you the right to condescend @kpmemberservice

Machine watching my vitals has been going off for over 20 minutes now and no one has yet to show up. All the nurses are huddled around the middle having personal conversations about how they have no seniority here. Earlier I waved down one of the nurses who informed me he would be back in just a moment 30 minutes went by before I was able to get the attention of someone else. I came in at 12:30 am was seen at 1am it’s now 5:45 and I can’t sleep due to all the personal conversations and you think these professionals would know better than to use vulgar language in the work place.

Never had a single issue at this location! I’ve been here for L&D. A+ experience. High risk repeat cesarean, had a wonderful experience through and through. Lots of staff came in and out of my room constantly… But I’ve worked in a hospital before and know how it is. There’s not much that can be done about who comes in when and why.
I’ve been to these facilities also to have a mass cut out of a breast and biopsies. It was a semi-​barbaric procedure, but I was made as comfortable as I could have been and had a really really nice surgeon.
I was also in for a medically necessary plastic surgery procedure. My surgeon (Dr. Song) is absolutely a joy to work with. All of the staff on the day of my surgery was amazing and sympathetic. I was loopy on the meds saying all kinds of weird stuff to them and they were able to roll with the punches, lol.
Wish I could go to these facilities all the time!

I like Kaiser, my experiences here have always pleasant and efficient. My women’s Physician is Dr. Tritto and she is awesome. I really like her and find it easy to talk with her. I like the online system and the promptness of return emails and results.

A hell hole ! Our Mom was sent here via transport the night she had a stroke. The ER dept dispatched her upstairs the the ICU for the expected tests and after only a 2 day stay they sent her packing to Manor Care — a tragically understaffed «rehab» facility.
Major problems with the seriously dysfunctional Kaiser staff: 1) When my Mom was finally sitting in a wheel chair and trying hard to stand up and leave the facility (something quite common in stoke patients, their sense of time and judgement are severely impaired, the events of the stroke are not recognized at all), the attending nurse, who should be quite familiar with this behavior, asked me and my sister what was wrong with our Mom !!!
Panic set in and we were suddenly supposed to know what to do and to find a solution. what !? This was an intensive care unit at a hospital ! — they DEAL with this — they are SUPPOSED to know what to do. Finally, after two very stressful hours, a nurse showed up who understood the situation and wheeled her around for a long tour of the facility to calm this urge to escape.
Finally, and it was a major error, Kaiser released her for physical rehab before stabilizing the mental symptoms that would eventually lead to her death despite the fact that she quite capable of recovery, and in the ensuing week did so, BUT only physically. They needed to research and come up with a medicinal and preventative solution to regulate the propensity and anxiety associated with the a stroke patient’s fall risk. The failure to do so seems to be the rush to vacate the space she was taking as fast as possible and send her off to rehab before she was stable, like a piece of flesh, a financial concern instead of a human concern. This facility can be, (and was for our Mom), a death sentence for elderly patients or those with severe conditions that need more than 2 days to stabilize and assess.

I am writing this review to relay my thanks and gratitude to the KP Walnut Creek medical team who cared for my mother throughout her illness since March 2015. Before I continue further, I have to qualify this review by acknowledging that I have been a KP employee for the past 2 years; however, both my mother and I have been longtime KP members at the Walnut Creek facility since the 70s. My son was also born at this facility in 2001, so I have much experience as a member and patient here.
My mother fell ill this past March and was diagnosed end-​stage renal failure, among other health issues she was dealing with that made her case incredibly complex. Her medical team consisted of physicians, nurses, and staff that crossed many practices, including nephrology, rheumatology, pulmonology, cardiology, social work, dietetics, health education, hospice, and, of course, her GP.
I was greatly impressed by the coordination amongst all these teams, as well as touched by the level of care, concern, and attention they gave in treating her. Every doctor, nurse, technician, custodial staff, and facility employee who connected with my mom and our family treated us with the utmost compassion and respect that could ask for during what was a very difficult and confusing time, as my mother was in and out of the hospital extensively.
Through all this, it was not known or revealed to anyone that I work for KP. So, for anyone wondering, the high degree of care we experienced was afforded to us solely as KP members. We were not given «special treatment» for my status as an employee; my mother was treated the same as every other KP member — with the highest regard and quality of care for her as a member.
As a KP employee, I will say that my experience during my mom’s illness has reinforced my feeling of pride in working for an organization that I can stand by and people can believe in. Thank you, KP, and KP Walnut Creek.
I also want to extend a note of gratitude and appreciation for KP Medicare, particularly «Debbie,» a KP Medicare representative in San Diego. She connected with me personally to help me understand my mother’s medical coverage as a Senior Advantage member — for anyone dealing with Medicare who is not yet of Medicare age, it is INCREDIBLY confusing! But Debbie spent a lot of time on the phone making sure that I understood everything and all was sorted out.

Much Kinder than martinez staff. THE DOCTORS are way above the level of care in Martinez. The service is swift, the attendants caring. I got in and out of the lab in 5 minutes for blood and urine tests, which I take monthly for my thyroid (SRY TMI)…
The parking is a bit of a bummer, as well as downtown traffic. HOWEVER, it is worth it to not be treated like cattle corpse in martinez and basically spit on. Thanks for being great Walnut Creek.

This review is for the NICU unit nurse Alison. While the majority of the nurses were lovely –nurse Alison was a danger to my niece and should have her license removed.
Not sure why a woman so terrible would voluntarily work with preemie babies.
What did she do:
–She put my preemie niece on her stomach with a pacifier in her mouth, the poor thing was practically coking with that and the feeding tube in her nose. My sister almost had a heart attack when she came in the room and saw the baby lying that way she thought she was dead.
–She constantly did not change the babies diaper, one day the precious little baby was covered all over her body in feces.
–She did not talk kindly to the other baby in the room, constantly telling him to ‘stop being dramatic’, the poor baby was crying b/​c he had a wet diaper.
–She did not make any real effort to feed the baby w/​out the tube, she would try for a whole 1 – 2 minutes before she would shove the tube down the baby’s nose.
–She often forgot to write things down in the baby’s chart like the fact that he was taking 80% of her food naturally, something my sister had to tell the doctor.
Thank-​god for the other nurses and the kind doctors. If you have a baby at this hospital do not let nurse Alison anywhere near your child.

Kaiser is great s long as you are healthy. They put a lot of effort into prevention and the whole institution works like a well-​oiled machine. Simple and general things like blood draws, immunizations, well-​visits, and the pharmacy are extremely well organized, user-​friendly, .and you get what you pay for in an efficiently organized work flow. It is great for me as I have never needed any sick care.
Doctors and nurses are second class, though. None of the Kaiser doctors comes from a top med schools, and in every interaction I noticed that they come from the bottom half of their class. They also get paid poorly, I hear, so don’t expect too much.
If you really get seriously sick you may want to go to UCSF or Stanford where you find top doctors. Kaiser can’t really compete and I believe they don’t really want to.

Came here for the first time when I came to pick someone up after their surgery. This location is a lot bigger than it really is! There is a parking garage right next to the hospital and it is free of charge which is nice. There are two main buildings, one side is the hospital and one side is doctors offices. There are a lot of volunteers to help you out with finding a patient or finding a specific area they might be located at.
Surgery waiting wing is on the 3^rd floor (where the maternity ward can also be found) and there is a large waiting room where there is a screen to tell you the status on the patient. Thought this was really different and a better way to keep track of what the status is without having to ask someone every 5 minutes. Once you are able to see your loved one, someone calls you on your phone and a nurse or volunteer will come out to direct you to where your loved one is.
The nurses in the ER are all very kind and are attentive to your patients needs and to the visitors needs as well. We were discharged about an hour after surgery. Overall a good kaiser experience and although I do not have kaiser, it’s safe to say that their care is pretty good in my opinion and experiencing it first hand through a loved one.

Its hard to give five stars when my doctor cant tell me whats going on with my shoulder even though I am actually in pain while I am writing this review. I was sent to xrays but that was last Tuesday and I haven’t heard a word back about the results. I was given a prescription but I went to get it filled and they said the wait was going to be 2 hours. So I left and went to the
Shadelands Pharmacy where they filled it in 15 mins or less. So overall my shoulder has been hurting for about 5 weeks and it has slowly gotten worse, they now want me to go see a physical therapist but no one can see me after five so I am just trying to do all the exercises by my self and nothing seems to be working. Thanks Kaiser you are a really big help on this one.

I wish I could give this hospital zero stars. They have made my grandfather’s death excruciatingly painful and traumatic on both a physical and emotional level for him and our family.
My 68-​year-​old grandfather is terminally ill. We brought him home from the hospital for hospice care. Two days later, we get a call saying that we need to bring him in, they have antibiotics to cure him easily, and everything is going to be okay. My entire family was crying with joy and relief.
We loaded him into an ambulance (which put him in excruciating pain, and putting him at risk of breaking bones, as his illness has made them very fragile and he already has several broken), got him there, all the while telling him excitedly that he’s going to get better, and the doctor came in and informed us that a «mistake» had been made. He’s not going to be cured. He’s still dying.
While in the hospital, a nurse left a cloth bleach wipe (which on the box says «not for use on humans») on his genitals after scrubbing them raw (leaving scabs on him). They also gave him stool softener when they knew he had C. diff (which he contracted on a previous visit to the hospital).
As a result of us taking him into the hospital to have this «miracle cure» administered, our hospice was revoked. We now have to reapply for hospice.
Additionally, during prior visits, they missed the times at which he needed to receive his medication, putting him into pain so bad he was thrashing, then rolled their eyes at me when I insisted he needed it. I begged four different staff members to give him his medicine, and they all brushed me off before he received it. They left him in the emergency room three hours after a bed was ready upstairs because they «forgot». Nurses yanked him around the bed violently and forced him to get up and walk, insisting to exercise that he had to, because they had not looked at his chart and seen that he has a broken hip and a fractured tailbone.
This has been the most difficult and traumatic experience of my life. I have never seen such a massive failure. It is terrifying to me that this can actually happen and I will never return to this hospital under any circumstances. I would be better served staying at home and trying to cast a magic spell on my sickness than going here.

It’s Kaiser.
The facility itself is relatively cleanly but I was a little disturbed by the fact that a company that made $ 50.6 billion in annual operating revenue in 2012 leaves almost all of their front desk reception duties in the hands of volunteers. So you’re a for-​profit medical megastructure that makes bookoo bucks on the back of free labor? Every single «receptionist» I came in contact with at every single desk I visited (I only visited four, in all fairness: Medical Services, Pharmacy, Emergency and Urgent Care) was being manned by two to three volunteer workers.

The parking at this location is atrocious for patients, families, and even employees. Really hoping they move the medical office building off site to another location and expand the hospital with more private rooms for patients. Also the Discharge pharmacy needs to be upgraded. Hoping they upgrade what they already have before continuing to expand any new locations in Northern CA.