In love with the mission: The leadership of Robert H. Curry
Robert H. Curry is the chief executive officer of Emanate Health. Twelve years ago, Rob accepted the opportunity to lead Emanate Health (then known as Citrus Valley Health Partners) and relocated with his wife, Lori, from northern California to the San Gabriel Valley. Rob and his team turned a community-based health care system facing difficulty into a high-performing continuum of care, one of the fastest growing in the state. In the midst of building his team and making smart business decisions, Rob fell in love with the mission.
The whole person
“We exist to help people keep well: the whole person—body, mind and spirit,” he explains. “We accomplish this by serving our communities with excellent acute care in a safe, compassionate environment, while also providing outreach, education and preventative health services.” Rob’s passion for meeting the needs of the community is heartfelt and genuine. He recognizes the legacy of the Immaculate Heart Community of Sisters and their resolve to open Queen of the Valley Hospital in 1962. “The sisters were early health care advocates, determined to provide compassionate care to the vulnerable in the community.”
Rob’s list of accomplishments at Emanate Health is long. Noteworthy is financial stability, improving the organization’s D minus bond rating to a stable A minus. For Rob, the hospitals’ change in mindset to focus on patient safety was pivotal. “Five years ago our team renewed their focus on protecting patients, and we have been successful. We established a goal of zero harm in our hospitals. We added the word ‘safe’ to our mission.” Six Sigma Green Belt training was implemented to create a safety orientation. Process change produced results: sepsis mortality was cut in half, and remarkably, not one patient has experienced a fall in an Emanate Health hospital this year.
The Curry commitment to philanthropy
Rob’s father was 52 years old when he succumbed to a sudden heart attack. For Rob, it was one of the worst moments in his life, taking him from happy teen to an adult almost overnight. He traded his private college education for classes at the University of Pittsburgh. A bank teller by day, a college student in the evening, and an EMT and paramedic on the night shift, Rob developed his work ethic—and an interest in health care.
The profound, unexpected loss of his father serves as an underpinning to Rob’s current concern about providing access to emergency care at Queen of the Valley Hospital (QVH). The QVH emergency department was built to serve 30,000 patients. In 2018, there were nearly 80,000 patient visits, with a 30% increase projected over the next ten years. Expansion plans are underway to transform the 24-bed capacity to 60 spaces, with the addition of 36,000 square feet.
For Rob and Lori, this need to increase access to care prompted their most significant commitment to philanthropy to date, a $250,000 pledge to the QVH emergency department expansion. “You never know when your father will have a heart attack or when your own health will suddenly require emergency care. Lori has been a patient here in the emergency room, and she knows how she was treated when she needed it most.”
Rob Curry’s leadership makes it clear that Emanate Health exists to welcome and treat everyone—the sick, the poor and the vulnerable. He is proud of Emanate Health and its benefit to the people of the San Gabriel Valley. “Our community needs this expansion! There is nothing more noble than being able to help. Lori and I feel so blessed that we can make this gift.”
Fun facts:
Rob Curry is: an Eagle Scout, a University of Pittsburgh magna cum laude graduate, a die-hard Pittsburgh Steelers fan, a music lover, voracious reader and most of all, proud husband and father to five children and two grandchildren, twins Jayden and Brooklyn.
“We exist to help people keep well: the whole person—body, mind and spirit.” - Robert H. Curry, Emanate Health president and chief executive officer