Hartford Business Journal

27 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | OCTOBER 18, 2021 POWER 25 HEALTHCARE Mercy Medical Center in Spring- field, Mass. — and he brings a unique background to the job because he's a doctor and holds an MBA from Michi- gan State University, giving him both a medical and business background as he navigates the choppy waters of a pandemic and industry consolidation. He was named co-chair of Gov. Ned Lamont's COVID-19 Vaccine Adviso- ry Group, which helped develop the state's vaccine distribution strategy. Trinity's $1.59 billion in fiscal 2019 operating revenue ranked third highest among Connecticut health systems, behind crosstown competitor Hartford HealthCare and Yale New Haven Health. Burke was named interim president of St. Francis in May 2020, at the height of the first wave of the pan- demic, with a mandate to care for the hospital's embattled caregivers. After a national search, he was named per- manent president by November. Burke's role goes beyond adminis- tration — a background in pharmacy qualified him for an unique photo-op in mid-January when he administered the COVID-19 vaccine to hospital leaders, including Eadie. The onset of the pandemic prompt- ed St. Francis and Trinity to invest aggressively in telehealth, transform- ing their care model and committing to hiring "virtualists" to treat patients online. Upgrading physical facilities has also been a focus, with St. Fran- cis opening a new $26.5 million outpa- tient orthopedic and spine surgery center on the Hartford main campus and an ambulatory care center in Rocky Hill. Jeffrey Flaks & Bimal Patel In an interview with Hartford Busi- ness Journal earlier this year, Jeff Flaks reflected on his 17 years at Hartford HealthCare and nearly two years as CEO, over which time he's helped oversee a gradual transforma- tion of the system — turbocharged by the pandemic — into an organization that has become decentralized and focused on bringing care into communities across the state. The ability to coordinate that care state- wide is centered in Hartford, at HHC's new Access Center at 100 Pearl St., a node for sched- uling, imaging, electronic health records and other technology in one location with the goal of creating "an Amazon of health care." Flaks oversees a statewide health system that recorded $3.5 billion in operating revenue in fiscal 2019, which represented nearly one of every four operating dollars collected by all Con- necticut health systems combined. While he's still relatively new to the corner office, he played a key part in helping build out the HHC system, climbing the ranks for years into bigger leadership roles, where he was groomed as a successor to former CEO Elliot Joseph. HHC is the second-largest health system in Connecticut, behind Yale New Haven Health, and its Connecti- cut market share has grown of late to within just a few percentage points of the New Haven-based system. With its purchase of St. Vincent's Medical Center in Bridgeport in 2019, HHC made a big play in Fairfield County, investing millions to renovate the aging facility. Flaks is also a major cheerleader for the city of Hartford, which HHC made a big commitment to with new operations downtown at 100 Pearl St. Bimal Patel leads Hartford Health- Care's flagship Hartford Hospital and Hartford region and he's also a senior vice president of the parent compa- ny. He's also risen through the care provider's ranks over the years. Patel was hired by Hartford Hospital in 2009 and was a project-manage- ment executive, playing a key role in developing a 20-year master plan and completing 400,000 square feet of upgrades to the hospital on time and on budget. In 2014 he was appointed senior vice president for operational inte- gration for Hartford HealthCare, put in charge of systemwide services, in- cluding pharmacy, lab, radiology, real estate, facilities and construction and engineering, among other services. Patel recently led the debut of Hart- ford Hospital's new Bliss center, a 50,000-square-foot facility expansion on the care provider's main campus that increases intensive-care unit, operating room and other capacities. Deidre Gifford Deidre Gifford has been one of the key players leading the state through the coronavirus pandemic. Pre-COVID she was the commis- sioner of the state Department of Social Services but was appointed in May 2020 as interim commissioner of the Department of Public Health, making her one of Gov. Ned Lamont's closest advisors on COVID-19. Gifford's main task this year has been trying to get as many residents as possible vacci- nated against the coronavirus. So far, Connecticut has been a leader in this space, with about 69.1% of residents getting fully vaccinated as of Oct. 5, according to a New York Times analysis. More recently she's been trying to figure out strategies to get vaccine hesitant residents to get the shot, while also trying to control the spread of the delta variant. Deidre recently relinquished her interim DPH title, as a new, perma- nent commissioner — Dr. Manisha Juthani — took over the role. Deidre has taken on a new title of senior ad- visor to Lamont for health and human services. 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. Marna Borgstrom Marna Borgstrom leads the largest health system in Connecticut, Yale New Haven Health, which isn't based in Greater Hartford, but certainly has a presence and impact here. In 2015, Yale New Haven Health 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. Just as import- ant, Yale New Haven Health has become the top com- petitor with the second-largest health system in the state, Hartford HealthCare. Both organizations have increas- ingly encroached on each other's turf in recent years and are battling for market share in Fairfield County. Borgstrom made news in Septem- ber when she announced she was re- tiring next March. She will be replaced by Chris O'Connor. Borgstrom worked her way up the corporate ladder at Yale, starting at Yale New Haven Hospital 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 executive vice president and chief operating officer. In 2005, she was appointed pres- ident and CEO of both Yale New Haven Hospital and Yale New Haven Health system. The Yale New Haven Health Sys- tem, which reported $4.9 billion in operating revenue in fiscal 2019, has grown its reach in recent years with several acquisitions, including Milford Hospital. It also owns Bridgeport, Greenwich and Lawrence + Memorial hospitals. Borgstrom is among the Connecti- cut hospital CEOs that has mandated COVID-19 vaccinations for staff. Mark Masselli Mark Masselli has been a major innovator in the community health center space and he's also taken a proactive role in helping the state respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. He started Middletown-based Com- munity Health Center as a standalone clinic in 1972 with a group of Wes- leyan University students and community activists, and built it into a leading federally qualified, inde- pendent, non- profit healthcare provider in the state, offering comprehensive primary care services in medicine, dentistry and behavioral health to more than 145,000 people, particularly lower-in- come underserved patients. He's been known for bringing an entrepreneurial spirit to CHC, which has been expanding in recent years. In 2019, the health system debuted a $47-million expansion, adding three new healthcare sites totaling 81,400 square feet — in Hartford, Middle- town and Stamford — that expanded primary care access to an additional 16,000 low-income patients. During the pandemic, Masselli has led statewide efforts to open mass vaccination sites. In January, CHC opened Connecticut's largest vacci- nation site at the time at Pratt & Whit- ney Stadium in East Hartford, which administered thousands of shots to residents. Kevin Lembo & Victoria Veltri Connecticut is known for having activists keen on expanding access to and reducing the costs of health care. Many of them are found within state government, including Comptroller Kevin Lembo and Office of Health Strategy Executive Director Victoria Veltri. Lembo, the state's former healthcare advo- cate and Demo- cratic guberna- torial candidate, is in charge of administering public employee health plans and has been on the cutting edge of new payment models with insurers. He's also been highly critical of rising healthcare costs and suggested new ways of controlling them. Jeffrey Flaks Bimal Patel Deidre Gifford Marna Borgstrom Mark Masselli Kevin Lembo Victoria Veltri

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