Sutter Rehabilitation Institute

Michael Goodman

I had the misfortune to be a patient at SRI for as a recovering spinal fusion patient for 8 days in June, 2021. I am 78 years old and a practicing Gynecological Plastic Surgeon. I was treated as a brainless child, restricted to my bed with no physical activity whatsoever other that OT and PT for 1 hour each daily, except for Saturday and Sundays when I was confined mostly to bed all day. I had to ring the bell to get out of and into bed, and if I got up out of a chair without assistance a loud buzzer would go off. Nursing care was algorithmic and perfunctory, and riddled with mistakes. Necessary medications were forgotten, and medications written for a one-time event were continued unnecessarily ad infinitum. Thank God I am a physician, and reviewed my daily meds before I took them; I can only guess about the medication errors repeated daily for less medically sophisticated patients. Medical care also was algorithmic and a joke. The putative Medical Director, a Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation physician, offered no personalized care, would write orders on the EMR, then chronically neglect to stop them when no longer necessary. A jolly internal medicine physician made 30 second rounds daily, making a show of listening to my chest , saying I was fine, and quickly departing. When I threatened to sign out "AMA," after being told that the facility planned to keep me 5 full days after I should have been discharged, suddenly arrangements were made and I was instructed in home care. Interestingly, some of the instructions I received from The OT (Occupational Therapist) assigned to me was the opposite of what I had been instructed by my spine surgeon. Also disturbing was the fact that my spine surgeon (a "star" of the Sutter Neuroscience Department) 100% absented himself from my care, never making rounds or communicating with me after surgery (Abandonment, anyone..??) The facility wanted me to stay for another "therapy-less" Saturday and Sunday (plus 3 additional days), most likely because the census was down, and Sutter needed to increase its income through lean times (This is nick-named "thrashing," a way to gain more insurance payments; Sutter is well known for this, and has been "dinged" by the State Department of Health...,) I would give only one star, given because they managed not to kill me; I give 2 stars because of occasional humanity and good care from a particular Certified Nursing Aide, and one (only one!) nurse. This facility provided "cookbook" care. The only shining light was its Physical Therapy Department (5 stars) and, generally its Occupational Therapy personnel (4 stars.) But then, I could have gotten this through home care... --Michael P Goodman, MD Davis, CA ***I am adding to my review here at a later time, as I saw the bogus comment from the "Quality Control" guy. I DID contact them; I got a perfunctory response with a promise (unkept!) to call me back. I have little good to say about both the Sutter system, Sutter General, and especially Sutter Acute Care. As I mentioned, I am a practicing clinician. I have practiced in several hospitals including Sutter facilities, Dignity facilities, Kaiser, and smaller community hospitals. Between my surgeon (George Pacetti, MD) abandoning me to assistants not savvy as to my surgery and post-op situation, the below-standard-of-practice medical and nursing care received, and unskilled and uncaring physicians in Acute Rehab, I never plan to be a patient at Sutter again. Stay away from Pacetti, Sutter General, and especially Sutter Acute Rehab!

Kim Johan-Nass

Wonderful facility and phenomenal staff. Spacious, clean, organized, professional. Lovely courtyard, with fountain, vending machines a lots of room for privacy when visiting with family. The parking can be a bit tricky, especially for big trucks, but there a few spots that when open, are perfect.

Rob D

Rehab staff is great. Admin people not so much. Very little help, don't believe what they say about results, etc. In 2 days they determined when my mother would leave. We were told she would be walking, taking care of herself, etc at that point. Not even close. We're taking her to another facility since we were basically kicked out. 14 days and you're done regardless of where you're at. Pitiful. Rehab peeps get 5 stars. Case management people get 0.

Shawn LeCrone

My review of the Therapy that was received by the actual PT and OT staff is a 7 out of 5 stars amazing team and “Boot Camp” to give you the confidence you need to make the recovery you deserve. They ran me thru the gauntlet to to regain my ability to walk again and confidence that my new disability was not going to be my life’s story. They were the reason I went to SRI and they were worth all the hype and accolades they were given before hand. But I was lucky and my injury didn’t effect my speech or cognitive thinking so in lieu of the hour of speech therapy I was pond off to what seemed like the intern staff that wasn’t given clear direction on what to do so it became a complete waste of mine and my families time. As my family stated it was my “babysitting time” to allow them to bill my insurance. My only warning is to BE CAUTIOUS of some of the physicians, the one I was assigned to should have been a patient not the doctor and was worse off than some of the stroke victims he was supposed to be caring for. All I want to say is if your loved one is being seen by this facility and there symptoms affect there cognitive mind you really need to be cautious and ask tons of questions. Due to complications from my surgery my cognitive state was being affected and I was not fully aware of it but if it wasn’t for my family and the amazing RN staff this physician would have had me back in the ICU instead of at home today. My suggestion is if there is any complication from your symptoms that got you to this facility make sure your primary doctor is coordinated with and that their orders are relayed to the RN staff. Cause when I wasn’t in my cognitive mind and my family had not intervened this SRI physician was going to change my orders back to what was causing my complications which turned out to be seizures. And all the way to the point of discharge he continued to ignore the orders from my primary neurosurgeon and continued to try and change my chart for no reason other than complete incompetence.