Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com • July 15, 2019 • Hartford Business Journal 5 Reporter's Notebook Matt Pilon | mpilon@HartfordBusiness.com Health Care/Bioscience, Startups & Entrepreneurs, Government/Law and Energy HEALTH CARE Hartford HealthCare, Trinity College deepen relationship T he two largest institutions in Hart- ford's South End have long been friendly neighbors and collaborators, but a newly announced arrangement ties them more tightly together. Under a two-year contract that begins this month, Hartford HealthCare is taking over many of the healthcare services Trinity College pro- vides to its on-campus students. Hartford HealthCare (HHC) will assume man- agement of the Trinity College Health Center as well as services offered at the college's Ferris Athletic Center. The two parties told HBJ that approximately 15 healthcare providers and employees currently on Trinity College's payroll will become employees of Hartford HealthCare Medical Group. Officials wouldn't disclose financial terms of the contract, but Trinity will be paying HHC for its services. The deal could be extended after the initial two-year term expires. The aim, the two sides said, is for HHC to provide health services to Trinity students at a lower cost than the college has been paying under its own em- ployed-provider model, ultimately providing financial benefits for both the school and the health system. "Hartford HealthCare is helping to save Trinity money as it can provide these services at a lower cost/group rate than if Trinity had built its own healthcare team from scratch," the two organiza- tions said in a joint statement. Another aim is to increase students' access to specialists. That includes referrals to behavioral- health providers, as well as to orthopedic special- ists at Hartford Hospital's Bone & Joint Institute, a gleaming $150 million facility that opened in late 2016, less than a mile down the road from the col- lege at the health system's flagship campus. The new arrangement doesn't change any cur- rent pricing for students, officials said. The contract also includes HHC physicians staff- ing Trinity athletic events, with the health system seeking to highlight its team of sports-medicine and health specialists at the Bone & Joint Institute. Drew Galbraith, Trinity's athletics director, said the deal promises "a little bit more speed and a little bit more priority" for injured student athletes looking to see a surgeon or specialist. Earlier this spring, Trinity College's athletics contract with Connecticut Children's Medical Center expired. "The single biggest difference, when I look at it strictly from the sports-medicine side, is active access to additional resources," Galbraith said of the HHC deal. It's unclear how many U.S. colleges similarly contract out their health-services operations, rather than employ their own in-house team of providers, but it's not entirely uncommon. For example, Albion College in Michigan, Kean University in New Jersey, and Elon University in North Carolina are among those that have partnered in recent years with some mix of area hospitals, medical groups or urgent care centers to provide student healthcare services. Meantime, the Trinity-HHC arrangement is the latest in a long line of collaborations. The two have long been stakeholders, along with Connecticut Children's, in the Southside Institutions Neighborhood Alliance, which works to improve surrounding neighborhoods through homeownership incentives, streetscape improve- ments and other programs. In 2017, the two forged a partnership that sends up to 20 students from Trinity's neuroscience pro- gram to conduct research at Hartford Hospital. Earlier this year, HHC and Trinity announced they would be collaborating on a new accelera- tor program, located in Hartford's Constitution Plaza, for digital-health startups. ENERGY & UTILITIES CT utility regulator targets backlog of utility-pole removals T he handful of companies that own Connecticut's hundreds of thousands of utility poles have reported a growing backlog of delays related to removing old poles that potentially pose safety hazards. The backlog is spurring the Public Utilities Regula- tory Authority (PURA) to, for the first time, propose fines against companies that fail to remove poles in a timely manner. PURA requires pole own- ers, after they replace a pole, to remove the old nearby pole within a certain time frame — 12 or 18 months, depending on location. Replacing a pole can involve multiple parties, which has at times slowed down the removal process. PURA says safety is also a factor, as having two poles side-by-side may obstruct driver vision, particularly at intersections. The regulator has been monitoring the efficiency of pole removals since 2004, when municipalities and others were complain- ing about a backlog of 22,100 double poles. Since then, pole owners have greatly reduced the number of double poles that violate PURA's mandated removal timelines. For ex- ample, in 2016, the backlog stood at 2,370, filings show. However, that jumped to 3,564 in 2017, and then to 6,916 in 2018. While PURA found violations of its double-pole policy back in 2016, it hasn't previously issued any fines until now. The regulator issued nearly $138,000 in fines against pole owners for missing removal deadlines, with the bulk of the fines against Frontier ($69,135) and Eversource ($61,200). "Penalties at this level are warranted given the long history of double poles in Connecticut and the [own- ers'] lack of justification … and their lack of any plan for removal," PURA wrote in a July 2 decision. Pole owners told PURA they face resource con- straints, coordination diffi- culties and higher priority work. PURA also plans to ramp up required reporting of double-pole backlogs by pole owners moving forward. PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED Trinity College President Joanne Berger-Sweeney with Hartford HealthCare President (and soon to be CEO) Jeffrey Flaks. The two institutions recently inked a student health-services contract. PHOTO | MATT PILON Backlog rising While better coordination and closer monitoring since 2004 have helped reduce utility pole-removal delays, the backlog saw a sharp uptick last year. Number of double poles exceeding PURA's removal deadlines 2003: 22,100 2016: 2,370 2017: 3,564 2018: 6,916

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