Hartford Business Journal

24 Hartford Business Journal • October 5, 2020 • www.HartfordBusiness.com 2020 POWER 25 — HEALTH CARE much explanation. Gifford's main task has been trying to more closely align state agencies' response to the pandemic. Connecticut was hit hard by coro- navirus early on, leaving some to worry the state's hospitals would become overwhelmed. But Connecticut's aggressive re- sponse to the disease has helped get the virus' spread under control in recent months. Gifford has helped lead that effort on everything from testing to monitoring and respond- ing to various pockets of outbreaks in the state — including the one in Danbury in August. She and her office were also front and center in the debate over whether high school football should be played this fall. It won't be. Most recently she was named co-chair of Lamont's COVID-19 Vaccine Adviso- ry Group, which will help develop a distribution strategy once a vaccine is readily available. Prior to joining the Department of Social Services, from 2016 to 2019 Gifford served as deputy director for the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Washington, D.C. From 2012 to 2015, she served as Medicaid director in the Rhode Island Executive Office of Health and Human Services. Albert Ko Gov. Ned Lamont has leaned on many health experts in recent months to guide him through the coronavirus pandemic. One of his top non-administration advisors has been Dr. Albert Ko, department chair and professor of ep- idemiology and medicine at the Yale School of Medicine. In April, just as the disease was be- ginning to rapidly spread in the state, Ko was appointed co-chair of the Reopen Connecticut Advisory Group, which was in charge of consulting with and advising the Lamont ad- ministration on reopening the state's economy following an unprecedented shutdown of non-essential businesses. The Reopen Advisory Group pub- lished compre- hensive guide- lines for when businesses can reopen and what safety guidelines they must follow to keep custom- ers and workers safe. Ko was a leading figure early on in the crisis, attending daily press conferences to inform the me- dia and public where Connecticut stood in terms of dealing with the pandemic and how best to stop the disease from spreading. During his regular day job, Ko's research at Yale has centered on the health problems that have emerged as a consequence of rapid urbaniza- tion and social inequity. David Cordani When state lawmakers were considering adopting a public health insurance plan for Connecticut resi- dents and businesses last year, Cigna Corp. CEO David Cordani report- edly threatened to uproot his Bloomfield-based health insurer and relocate it elsewhere. The legisla- tion died that same day. Cigna denied any threat was made, but the episode still under- scored the power health insurers have in Connecticut, where they still remain one of the region's largest employers. Cordani oversees 4,700 employees in Connecticut and fol- lowing that reported flare up, his company has reaffirmed its com- mitment to Bloomfield, kicking off a $90-million-plus campus renovation. In 2011, he was also able to negotiate a $50-million economic-incentives pack- age from the Malloy admin- istration in exchange for relocating the company's corporate headquarters to Bloomfield and increas- ing the company's employment in the state to more than 4,000. More broadly, Cordani is a na- tional leader when it comes to talks about healthcare reform, having met face to face with President Barack Obama to discuss public health insurance exchanges. Marna Borgstrom Yes, this is a ranking of Greater Hartford healthcare power players, but Yale New Haven Health's growing reach in the region can't be ignored. Leading that charge and the state's largest health system is President and CEO Marna Borgstrom. Borgstrom worked her way up the corporate ladder at Yale, starting at Yale New Haven Hos- pital more than 30 years ago. According to her biography, her varied roles have taken her from a post- graduate fellowship, to various staff and management roles, to her 1994 promotion to the position of execu- tive vice president and chief operating officer. In 2005, she was ap- pointed president and CEO of both Yale New Haven Hospital and Yale New Haven Health System. The Yale New Haven Health System, which reported $4.9 billion in operat- ing revenue in fiscal 2019, has grown its reach in recent years with several acquisitions, including Milford Hospi- tal. It also owns Bridgeport, Greenwich and Lawrence + Memorial hospitals. In 2015, it expanded into Greater Hartford via a cancer partnership with St. Francis Hospital, which included the opening of the Smilow Cancer Hospital at St. Francis in Hartford. Karen Lynch Following Aetna's $69-billion merger with Rhode Island-based CVS Health in late 2018, Karen Lynch took over as president of the Hart- ford-based health insurer. Lynch, who is also CVS Health's executive vice president, now stands on the front lines of try- ing to make work one of the largest healthcare com- binations in U.S. history that has promised to re- shape the health- care landscape by pairing a large drug store/pharmacy-benefit manager with the third-largest U.S. health insurer. During her tenure as head of Aet- na she's put a spotlight on mental health care, launching new "Health Hubs" at CVS locations, growing membership and trying to simplify the healthcare process, drive consumer engagement and im- prove customer health. She's also received numerous ac- colades during her career, including being named to Fortune's list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Busi- ness for the last four years, and one of the Top 25 Women in Healthcare by Modern Healthcare in 2017. Andrew Agwunobi UConn Health CEO Dr. Andrew Agwunobi is a pediatrician by training, but his patient for the past five years has been a $1.2-billion hospital and medical and dental school that consis- tently produces large budget deficits. Agwunobi previously held hospital system leadership jobs in Washing- ton and Georgia before assum- ing in 2015 his current role at UConn, where he oversees about 4,000 full-time employees. He has spent much time in recent years respond- ing to legisla- tors' demands to find a suitable path forward for the clinical operations of UConn Health, through an envisioned acquisition of, or co-investment in, John Dempsey Hospital and UConn's medical group. UConn Health, which pursued an ultimately unsuccessful merger with Hartford HealthCare in 2009, received several confidential partnership pro- posals in 2018, but Agwunobi and his board decided not to pursue them. The continued losses come despite a major expansion of UConn Health's John Dempsey Hospital facilities during the past decade, backed by more than $250 million approved by state lawmakers at the outset of the Malloy administration in 2011. Matthew Barrett and Mag Morelli Connecticut's aging population has meant an increasingly prominent role for the nearly 350 nursing homes 7 8 9 10 6 Dr. Albert Ko, Yale School of Medicine David Cordani, CEO, Cigna Corp. Marna Borgstrom, President and CEO, Yale New Haven Health Dr. Andrew Agwunobi, CEO, UConn Health Karen Lynch, President, Aetna/ Executive Vice President, CVS Health Deidre Gifford, Interim Commissioner, Department of Public Health

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