By Clyde Noel

Dr. Dominick Curatola speaks about El Camino Hospital’s “superb record for quality care” at last week’s Main Street Forum.

Dr. Dominick Curatola, 12-year board member of the El Camino Hospital District, told the Main Street Forum audience last week that small turnouts at board meetings spell good news for hospital operations.

“Ever since I was elected to the ECH board in 1992, we have had only one huge turnout,” Curatola said. “Unless there is something wrong with a person’s health-care delivery, people seem to be happy with El Camino.”

Curatola has been on the hospital staff since 1984 as a cardiovascular physician. He has worked with numerous chief executive officers and different health-care systems at El Camino during the 20-plus years.

“El Camino Hospital is the jewel in the community.” Curatola said. “It has a superb record for quality care. Over the last five years, the hospital has received a number of awards in recognition of its achievements.”

The 2004 Commonwealth Fund report named El Camino one of the four top hospitals in the country. The ranking is based on an analysis of reports from 20 million patient records.

For the second consecutive year, the California Patient Experience survey awarded ECH its highest ranking, three stars. El Camino was the only hospital in Santa Clara County to receive three stars and the only one in California to repeat the high ranking.

El Camino was named the fourth best place to work in the Bay Area and first among the hospitals, according to the San Francisco Business Times.

“We get these awards because our employees are friendly, upbeat and have a passion for care. It’s personal care on a human level,” Curatola said. The audience had an opportunity to view a short movie, “The Right Care-Right Now,” which Curatola said captures the essence of El Camino Hospital and demonstrates the care that has made the hospital successful.

The controversy surrounding the compensation of El Camino Hospital CEO Lee Domanico was not raised during the question and answer period.

“When we hired Domanico he was selected from a huge battery of applicants. We narrowed it down to 12 and selected him because he had a business approach to the delivery of health care,” Domanico said. “We told him, ‘don’t fire anybody and don’t cut services, but make money.’”

Curatola’s concentration on building the hospital of the future is reflected in the new hospital buildings scheduled to open in the 2008-2009 period.

“The rooms will be larger offering more privacy, and we will expand the Emergency Room with FastTrac,” he said. “It was more profitable to build a new hospital than retrofit (for mandated earthquake safety), but costs are increasing constantly. Especially steel and dry wall.”

Curatola’s other top priority has been to maintain El Camino’s quality of health care and status as a state-of-the-art facility. El Camino Hospital is an early participant in the American Stroke Association’s “Get with the Guidelines” program. The hospital plans to apply for certification to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospital and Health-Care Organizations this month.

ECH has an expanded cardiac surgery program and performs some of the most complicated cardiac surgeries. The hospital provides patients access to world-class expertise in a community hospital setting with the assistance of Stanford surgeons.

Two doctors in the audience raised the issue of bad morale among hospital workers, but Curatola rejected the assertions, citing surveys that show high worker satisfaction levels.