Oakland Medical Center, also known as Kaiser Oakland, is a hospital located in Oakland, California, United States, at the intersection of MacArthur Boulevard and Broadway, immediately above downtown Oakland. It is the flagship hospital of Kaiser Permanente, the largest managed care organization in the United States, through its Kaiser Foundation Hospitals division.HistoryThe Oakland Medical Center was the first of the Kaiser Permanente hospitals, and opened in 1942 as a result of the acquisition of the Fabiola charity hospital (which operated from 1887-1932 before being sold to Samuel Merritt Hospital) by the Permanente Foundation, founded by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser and physician Sidney Garfield. This was the first modern Health maintenance organization (HMO) hospital after the experiment of using an HMO model was found to be successful among the 90,000 Richmond Kaiser Shipyards workers in the Richmond, California, Field Hospital. Several additions and renovations followed over the decades, notably a signature 12-story, 420-bed tower which opened in 1973.
