Excerpt:

Thank you to Paul Payne of the The Press Democrat, for his report today on the ratings of seven Sonoma County Hospitals, by the non-profit Niagara Health Quality Coalition. The report cards were based on California Department of Health records for 2007, and covered 36 different procedures and conditions, as well as hospital errors and mortality rates.

A one-star rating indicates worse than average outcomes, two stars for average, and three stars were given for better than average. There was no overall grade.

Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa was the only hospital in Sonoma County to receive three one-star below average ratings, for acute stroke mortality, birth trauma for infants, and post-operative hip fractures.

Queue KP’s PRBS response:[...]

Our apologies for the dearth of updates lately, but by no means does our temporary silence indicate that the Kaiser Krappola hasn’t continued to hit the fan. There’s too much to post individually, so please enjoy this Kaiser Permanente News Roundup:

Now that Kaiser has completed the nationwide roll out of the outpatient side of its [...]

[Same old story: complaints were ignored, patients died, whistleblowers were retaliated against, and Kaiser denies any wrongdoing regardless of copious evidence to the contrary. It happens so often we would be bored if it wasn't so damned tragic. Scroll down to the bottom of the story for a link to the original report about this [...]

Ian Bogost of Kotaku has written a not so healthy review of Kaiser Permanente’s much hyped new health game for kids, the Incredible Adventures of the Amazing Food Detective. It’s nice to know we’re not the only ones who recognize Kaiser PRBS? when we see it:
Kaiser is a big company with a lot of money, [...]

[The only thing more reprehensible than Kaiser's failure to protect its patients from this known repeat malpractice offender, is its PRBS release defending its despicable actions. Kaiser Thrive Exposed joins Justen Deal in his demand for the resignation of The Permanente Medical Group CEO, and lead obfuscater, Dr. Robert Pearl. In the meantime, Kaiser [...]

[kaiserthrive.org's editor's note: We love birthday parties -- especially our own -- but even so we were taught to be humble on these occasions, and that it would be less than polite to toot our own horn. Not so George Halvorson, who appears to revel in insulting Kaiser Permanente victims by refusing to address [...]

[kaiserthrive.org editor's note: Yeah, everyone is 'Thrive'-ing at Kaiser Permanente...unless you need a kidney transplant, or have pneumonia, or cancer, or a past due pregnancy, or a consumer complaint, or need a prescription, or, or, or...
Thrive has been so "successful" that nationally Kaiser membership has remained mostly flat since the campaign began, and the Hawaii [...]

[kaiserthrive.org editor's note: Our apologies for not posting this sooner, but due to recent personal obligations it has been difficult to update as often as we would like to. Unfortunately I also don't have much time tonight for commentary, although this article and Kaiser's news release certainly scream out for more than a little [...]

The impending release of Michael Moore’s scathing indictment of the US Health Care industry, ‘SiCKO’ — which features one Kaiser Permanente scandal after another — has the Kaiser PR goons working overtime. With their usual intent to baffle, befuddle and bamboozle, they would like to convince you to disbelieve what you see and hear [...]

We have posted the introduction to our new ongoing series on eKaiserInsuranceSucks.com, How to recognize Kaiser PRBS?. It begins:
The purpose of this web site is to chronicle and explore Kaiser Permanente’s latest internet advertising and social media PR campaign for eKaiser Insurance (see press release). We will also detail some of the problems at Kaiser, [...]