Mission Hospital Laguna Beach Emergency Department

"The er waiting room is filled with security guards talking loudly amongst themselves with water cooler talk, disturbing waiting patients. The nurse was bragging about how hung over she was. The staff is cold and uncaring. They’ll keep you waiting, even if they could have put you in a bad. When you leave you will feel worse than when you came in."

"About 3 weeks ago I did not have a good experience at both the ER and hospital. This included problems with their lab equipment used for blood analysis, software issues with their pill delivery system (Pixis), and most critically an egregious miss-diagnosis of my condition leading one of the ER doctors to suggest I be discharged from the ER after a nebulizer and a Z-antibiotic when a subsequent cat scan (insisted upon by my personal physician, who went ballistic upon hearing the ER physician's intention to discharge) revealed I had pneumonia! It took another day to determine it was viral, and not bacterial pneumonia, although they started treating me with strong antibiotics which they quickly ended upon the late lab results indicating a viral cause. Employees are noticeably not motivated and not patient focused, although there were exceptions such as Dr. Yim, and a couple of RNs and Nurse Assistants who were outstanding. But this was not proper healthcare-quite the contrary. I postulate the reason was partially explained by the many changes in ownership and management of this particular hospital in the last 5 years years. But there is a silver lining. Within 5 days of my submitting some thoughtful yet very critical comments (through an email submitted request for a review of my experience), I received a call from two of their top managers (one from ER and the other from hospital) to follow-up. I was informed that my on-line review was examined closely by even top management, and the two were directed by top management to discuss my review and comments. Furthermore, they indicted each one of my issues would be followed up and I would receive subsequent calls on these matters. As a retired member of top management of other service related companies, I found this top management responsiveness to be noteworthy and I will report back when I am contacted again after my concerns are reviewed. Excellent institutions are always are customer driven; mediocre and poor ones are not, and will flounder and possibly fail. I am hopeful, and somewhat confident, the management of Providence/St. Joseph's are aware of some inadequacies at their Laguna Beach hospital, and will address them in the coming weeks. Clearly, when any institution undergoes a change of management/ownership so frequently process, quality control, system integration and employee motivation will unfortunately suffer. If I did not receive this phone call in which my concerns were listened to quite professionally, my rating would have been 0-1 star. Because of this event and my perceived commitment for them to improve the delivery of healthcare, I elevated it to 3; I have every confidence given their excellent other healthcare facilities , this hospital will improve over the next few months and you will receive the care consistent with St. Joseph's standards."

"Well..... This last time, we did get great nurses 1.Amber and another male nurse (really nice and communication with us and GREAT Dr. Paul Assaad . Very nice, compassionate, concerned, heard us out. I can't say enough. We need more doctors like this... (especially that hospital)"

"I chose to be discharged rather than be there for another second under the "care" of head nurse Isabella. She openly mocked me for being in discomfort, and never kept me updated during my 12 hours in triage. This hospital claims to be Christian, but I really doubt Jesus looks down fondly on caregivers that show disdain toward their patients. I have never had a medical professional treat me that badly in my life."

"I have always had a good experience at this hospital until my latest visit when I had Taylor as my RN. He was extremely rude and dismissive. I asked to speak to a doctor and he refused, acting like he was the doctor. He had no bedside manner and he left me in tears. I have had many interactions at this hospital and he is by far the worst employee I have experienced there."