The San Francisco Department of Public Health is the owner and operator of Laguna Honda, a facility for skilled nursing and rehabilitation. Laguna Honda, one of the largest skilled nursing institutions in the country, is situated on a 62-acre campus in the center of the city and marks one of the largest commitments made by any city or county to rehabilitative care for seniors and persons with disabilities. It was established in 1866 to provide for the Gold Rush pioneers, who made up one of San Francisco’s earliest groups of residents. It continues to be a civic symbol of San Francisco’s history of helping the underprivileged today, more than 150 years after it was built.
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Our programs
The 780 residents of Laguna Honda receive excellent, tailored care every day from the center’s specialists and support team. The services offered by the Laguna Honda model are extensive.
- persons with numerous disorders require complex care.
- Support and guidance for those experiencing psychosocial challenges.
- An outstanding program of restorative treatment that helps individuals regain and maintain their physical competency.
- The San Francisco Bay Area’s sole skilled care facility specifically for HIV/AIDS patients.
- Services for skilled nursing:
- Rehabilitation: Physical, occupational, speech, and vocational programs are all included in the therapeutic services. Up to 240 patients finish their rehabilitation therapy at Laguna Honda each year, at which point they transition to a reduced level of care or independent living.
- services for treating stroke symptoms and traumatic brain injuries.
- a widely known program for dementia sufferers, including those with Alzheimer’s.
- treatment for Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, and other degenerative illnesses.
- People with developmental difficulties who live in groups.
- Including in-house palliative care that is run in partnership with the Zen Hospice Project of San Francisco, pain treatment and end-of-life care that places a strong emphasis on comfort and dignity.
Our Commitment
The goal of Laguna Honda is to deliver top-notch, culturally sensitive long-term care and rehabilitation services to San Francisco’s varied neighborhoods. In collaboration with residents and their loved ones, nurses, doctors, social workers, and therapeutic therapists create individualized care plans for each resident that are designed to address their specific needs and preferences. Our first priority is serving our residents. Our team of caregivers performs their duties with courtesy and compassion.
Our Future
On our 62-acre property, Laguna Honda relocated into three new LEED-certified facilities in 2010. The newest skilled care and rehabilitation facility in the nation is the Laguna Honda. The new structures were created by renowned health care architect Derek Parker to provide a special setting for healing and wellness. Here is a link to our video regarding the new Laguna Honda.
What is meant by Laguna Honda?
The first Laguna Honda opened its doors in 1867 as an almshouse for the Gold Rush settlers (who didn’t strike it rich, that is). On the former San Miguel Rancho, west of Twin Peaks, the city erected a four story wood frame structure. Laguna Honda, the name of the enormous rancho site where it was located, was given by a natural spring that fed a deep lagoon. On its 87 acres, the almshouse raised its own cattle and food. During a smallpox outbreak in 1868, a 24-bed hospital was opened; two years later, a small institution took its place. The site kept getting more structures added to it, and by 1906 it was housing earthquake refugees. President Theodore Roosevelt dedicated a brand-new pavilion-style facility in 1909. Clarendon Hall, a sizable permanent care facility, was constructed in 1910.
How is the Laguna Honda Hospital faring?
After at least four patients passed away within days or weeks after being transferred from Laguna Honda Hospital, officials announced that a nursing facility operated by the city of San Francisco will stop releasing patients as part of a federally mandated closure plan.
After two patients experienced non-fatal overdoses there in 2021 and California Department of Public Health inspectors found it to be “in a state of poor treatment,” the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services stopped paying Laguna Honda in April.
The nursing home was also required by the government agency—which covers the majority of the 700 patients there—to begin releasing or transferring patients before it was required to close at the end of September.
According to a statement from San Francisco’s Department of Public Health, inspectors decided to halt the transfers on Thursday.
How many beds is there in Laguna Honda?
A center for skilled nursing and rehabilitation, Laguna Honda Hospital (LHH). In addition to providing specialized treatment for people with wounds, brain trauma, stroke, spinal cord and orthopedic injury, HIV/AIDS, and dementia, it offers a variety of services to San Franciscans who are disabled and chronically ill.
The Laguna Honda Hospital had 780 acute level of care and skilled nursing beds as of 2019. Patients receiving rehabilitation treatments for the aftereffects of conditions and injuries like stroke, spinal cord injury, brain injury, and other significant traumas are referred to as skilled nursing rehab patients. Compared to patients in skilled nursing, acute patients typically stay for a shorter period of time and require more rehabilitation sessions.
A member of the San Francisco Health Network is Laguna Honda Hospital (SFHN). The Department of Public Health (DPH) is in charge of SFHN, a comprehensive system of care that covers main and specialty care, dentistry, emergency and trauma care, skilled nursing and rehabilitation, and behavioral health. The Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, Laguna Honda Hospital, and other primary care clinics run by the Department of Public Health are all included in the SFHN.
The number of patients that typically share a bed at Laguna Honda Hospital (LHH) each day is known as the average daily population.
Laguna Honda is closing; why?
The San Francisco Chronicle reported on August 15 that the Laguna Honda nursing facility in San Francisco has gotten a two-month delay on its closure date.
Nine patients died after being moved to another facility, prompting the extension to be approved. Laguna Honda’s new deadline is November 13, and all patient transfers have been suspended.
After two patient overdoses that were not deadly were discovered in 2021, the government CMS stopped making payments, and Laguna Honda was given the go-ahead to close.
Early in August, the city sued the federal government, claiming that the order to discharge or transfer patients violated its right to due process and endangered patient safety.
To address safety and care issues in the aim of overturning the closure order, the city is collaborating with Laguna Honda.
Laguna Honda may be closing.
4, 2022 7:10 p.m. In an effort to prevent the scheduled closure of Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center on September 13 after the skilled nursing facility was decertified, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu and previous City Attorney Louise Renne have both filed lawsuits against the federal government.
How old is the Laguna Honda Hospital?
An early group of San Franciscans, the Gold Rush pioneers, were taken care of at Laguna Honda when it originally opened in 1866.
Many individuals who had migrated to the West in search of riches in the Northern Californian gold and silver mines failed. The expanding city built a four story wood frame facility to house the city’s rising population of homeless residents on the former San Miguel Rancho west of Twin Peaks.
When San Francisco was still a part of Mexico, Jos de Noe, the final alcalde or mayor of the city, owned the rancho. It was a fantastic location for raising livestock and growing their own food. A deep lagoon, known as a laguna honda, was nourished by a nearby natural spring on the sloped hillside below Twin Peaks.
The structure was referred to as the Almshouse, which, up until the 20th century, was a common name for a shelter sheltering individuals who were chronically ill or poor and had nowhere else to go.
On 87 acres of farmland, the Almshouse raised its own food and livestock, like many similar establishments. By 1870, the farm not only provided food for the nearly 500 residents of the Almshouse, including adults and children, but it also produced a surplus that could be transported three miles to the northeast into town to be sold at market.
The Almshouse’s residents had very few amenities. They created their own shoes and clothing. The administrator, however, told city officials in 1872 that “combined with the food, clothing, and general cleanliness of the place [it] is comparable, if not superior, to any of the same sort in the U.S. or Europe.”
During a smallpox epidemic, the city constructed a 24-bed hospital in 1868, delivering the first medical services. The hospital closed in 1870 and was replaced by a tiny asylum after the epidemic subsided. The Almshouse served as a haven for a wide range of people who lived on the periphery of society, like many other such organizations do across the nation.
Is the hospital at Laguna Honda still open?
The City was granted permission by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the California Department of Public Health to halt all transfers and discharges associated with the Closure Plan until November 13, 2022. Payments made by Medicare and Medicaid to Laguna Honda have also been postponed until November 13.