El Camino’s new hospital ‘comes alive’

Monday morning was the start of just another day at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View. Patients rested quietly in their rooms, nurses administered drugs and bustled through the hallways. The emergency room took on patients — 27 surgeries were scheduled for the day.

Though business carried on as usual, there was one major difference about the hospital’s operations: They were all taking place in El Camino’s brand new, $470 million facility, after a meticulously planned patient and ER move from the old facility on Sunday morning.

After years of planning, the new El Camino Hospital is now open.

“This is literally the first full day of operations,” said Ken Graham, chief executive officer, on Monday morning to a room full of hospital staff, administrators and city officials including Mayor Margaret Abe-Koga, council members Mike Kasperzak, Laura Macias and Jac Siegal, city manager Kevin Duggan and county Supervisor Liz Kniss.

“What a marked difference,” Abe-Koga said of the new hospital before presenting a certificate from the city. “For the patients and their families, the experience will be a lot more enjoyable and comfortable one.”

“It’s just wonderful for the county as a whole,” Kniss said. “The entire county benefits from this kind of superb health care.”

Among those recognized for their work on the seven-year project were co-chairs of the activation committee: Ken King, vice president of facilities services and Diana Russell, RN, chief of clinical operations and nursing operations.

“Everything went exactly how it was planned,” Russell said, noting that planning for the actual move into the new facility has been in the works for over a year. In recent months Russell and her team led drills, planned scenarios and imagined real-life problems that could occur during the move, in order to prepare for the transition.

“I’m feeling great,” Russell told the Voice. She described her last moment in the new, still-empty hospital building at 4 a.m. Sunday morning before the move began, when the halls were deserted and all was quiet.

“It was fun to see it come alive,” she said.

The old El Camino emergency room was closed down at 6 a.m., with the new ER opening at 6:01. The first patient arrived minutes later, administrators said, and the first ambulance followed shortly after. The ER saw 138 patients Sunday.

Meanwhile, 119 patients were transferred from the old hospital building to the new one in a choreographed routine involving numerous volunteers and staff members wearing color-coded T-shirts. Starting at 7 a.m., the patients were wheeled in their beds at two minute intervals through a hallway connecting the two buildings. By 11:15 that morning, 30 minutes ahead of schedule, all were situated in their new rooms.

As of Monday morning, Russell said, the hospital was a little more than half full, but she added that by Monday evening the number of people would “increase dramatically.”

“The communication was so great yesterday,” said Tammy Ham, speaking from her daughter’s bedside in the new hospital facility. Emma Ham, 5, had her appendix removed in the old hospital building on Saturday. “They seemed very organized.”

Ham said they were informed after their daughter’s surgery about the transition to the new building, and that she was the first pediatric patient to move.

“She’s been very down and in pain,” added her father, Brian, “and after the move she was a whole new person.” The Hams said Emma received “princess” treatment from the hospital staff.

Emma said her favorite part of the new room was the shower, though her parents said she’s already been through several of the movies available on the private room’s flat screen television.

The Hams said they were impressed with the details that went into the design, especially for families visiting or staying over with loved ones. Amenities include comfortable bedside seating and private rooms; 85 percent of the rooms in the new hospital are private.

“It makes a huge difference as far as your privacy factor, and comfort,” Brian Ham said. People in the hospital are already dealing with a difficult situation, he said, and having a roommate is “an added situation” he was happy to avoid.

The new facility was constructed in order to comply with updated safety standards passed in 1994. El Camino Hospital is one of the first in the Bay Area to meet the new seismic safety standards.

El Camino was referenced in Popular Science magazine’s December 2009 issue as “the most technologically advanced hospital in the world.”