Hartford Business Journal

34 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | October 10, 2022 Hospital/Weill Cornell Campus, and was a chief resident at Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She arrived at Yale School of Medicine in 2002 for infectious diseases fellow- ship training and joined the faculty full time in 2006. She assumed the role of infectious diseases fellowship program director in 2012. She made headlines recently when she announced that COVID-19 restrictions in schools would be scaled back for the 2022-2023 academic year, as students return to a more normal year. She's also been encouraging COVID-19 booster shots and launched a new monkeypox vaccine program to combat that disease, which has similar but less fatal symptoms as smallpox. JENNIFER JACKSON As the president and CEO of the Con- necticut Hospital Association since 2000, Jennifer D. Jackson has advocated for strong hospitals and health systems and has — since the global pandem- ic — worked with hospital members and state leaders to address the crisis head-on. More recently, she's helped her mem- bers respond to child and adolescent behavioral health issues coming out of the pandemic, as well as responding to how best to address the spread of monkeypox. Jackson told the Hartford Business Journal that her goal in the next 12 months will be to take a more expansive look on all issues affecting health and health care. "We will continue to be a strong voice for investments in the healthcare work- force and a regulatory landscape that allows hospitals and health systems to improve and expand their ability to deliver care," she said. Jackson has also worked to get hos- pitals and health systems extra state and federal funding in the wake of the pandemic, which forced healthcare providers early on to cancel elective surgeries — a key revenue driver. In the year prior to the pandemic, Jack- son oversaw the industry's negotiating strategy in talks with the state that led to a $1.8-billion settlement over a hospital tax implemented by then-Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, as well as the end of a four-year legal battle that state leaders feared could cost Connecticut as much as $4 billion if it proceeded to trial. Jackson, who lives in Madison, received a nursing degree from the University of Delaware; an MBA from the University of New Haven; and a law degree from the UConn School of Law. Prior to becoming CEO, Jackson was CHA's general counsel and a vice pres- ident. DAVID CORDANI David Cordani is Connecticut's high- est-profile healthcare leader, as CEO of Bloomfield-based Cigna Corp., one of the country's largest health plans. Cordani has been an outspoken proponent of private insurance being the best way to make affordable healthcare coverage more widely available in the U.S. He's also not been shy about weighing in on a range of healthcare topics. During a JPMorgan Healthcare Confer- ence in January, he spoke about how Cigna was targeting primary care as a key growth area, including virtual care. In another interview with Yahoo Finance, Cordani defended the role of pharmacy benefit managers, a space Cigna plays in. He's also been a strong opponent of public health insurance plans that have been proposed and/or discussed at the national and state levels, including in Connecticut. In February, Cigna made a bold move by committing $450 million to its Cigna Ventures fund, which invests in technology and tech companies that develop tools and products it can fold into its clients' health offerings. Cordani oversees over 4,000 employees in Connecticut and his company has reaffirmed its commitment to Bloom- field by recently completing a multimil- lion-dollar headquarters renovation, even though more of Cigna's workforce is working remotely amid the pandemic. Cigna lately has also become a more active corporate citizen in the city of Hartford. Earlier this year it offered a $50,000 donation to the city's "Open Streets" program, an initiative that will clear se- lect roads of vehicle traffic for up to six hours one Sunday per month, allowing residents and visitors to gather, walk, exercise or bike in the area, with the ultimate aim of promoting community health and stimulating business sales. Cigna also agreed to contribute to a $1.7 million supplemental loan pool designed to help fund private real estate develop- ments in Hartford. CHRISTOPHER O'CONNOR As the new CEO of the Yale New Haven Health system, Christopher O'Connor has several priorities he wants to tackle. They include improving patient care, ensuring the system's financial stability and growth, attracting talent, and building the system's partnerships with the Yale School of Medicine and Yale University. Growing the system's Greater Hartford presence is also a priority. Earlier this year, O'Connor announced Yale's plans to purchase three Connecticut hospitals owned by Prospect Medical Holdings, including two in Greater Hartford — Man- chester Memorial and Rockville General, in addition to Waterbury Hospital. The purchase is currently under regulato- ry review. Yale New Haven Health initially expanded into Greater Hartford in 2015 via a cancer partnership with St. Francis Hospital, which included the opening of the Smilow Cancer Hospital at St. Francis in Hartford. Yale New Haven Health, which reported $5.8 billion in operating revenue in fiscal 2021, has become the top competitor with the second-largest health system in the state, Hartford HealthCare. Both organizations have increasingly encroached on each other's turf in recent years and are battling for market share in Fairfield County. O'Connor officially took the reins from longtime CEO Marna Borgstrom in late March, and now leads an organization with more than 28,000 employees. The system includes Yale New Haven Hospital, Bridgeport Hospital, Greenwich Hospital, Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London, and Westerly Hospital in Rhode Island. O'Connor has a lengthy history in health care. Before his promotion, he had various roles, including president, executive vice president and chief operating officer. He previously was president and CEO of the Hospital of St. Raphael before it joined Yale New Haven Hospital. Most recently, O'Connor has had to deal with some financial issues. The Yale New Haven Health System announced in Sep- tember that it cut 155 management-level positions due rising labor costs, inflation, supply chain issues and loss of federal COVID funding. Looking forward, O'Connor will be oversee- ing the system's plans for a new neurosci- ence center at the St. Raphael campus. LYNNE ROSEN Lynne Rosen has more than 25 years of experience developing and growing health services companies and has led Physicia- nOne Urgent Care as its CEO since Febru- ary 2015, focusing on expanding the company's footprint and developing key partnerships. Rosen — who previously was CEO of eye care company Claris Vision — has broad experience with startups, mergers and acquisitions and business planning. The Brookfield-based PhysicianOne Urgent Care acquired West Hartford's New En- gland Urgent Care in 2020. Rosen recently told the Hartford Business Journal that the company, which has 23 locations, includ- ing 16 in Connecticut, plans to add about a dozen more urgent care sites over the next 18 months. PhysicianOne — which has annual rev- enue of about $45.3 million — provides non-emergency care and has taken advan- tage of the rising popularity of urgent care centers that offer lower-cost and closer- to-home services compared to hospital emergency departments. Rosen's primary focus, she said, is to expand the company's reach and offer ad- ditional after-hours and weekend coverage for patients. In a June 2022 interview with the Hartford Business Journal, Rosen said her top goal was to have an urgent care within 10 min- utes of every patient's home, broadening care access at a time when many patients are experience long waits to see primary care providers and specialists. "The healthcare system is very stressed and patients have a hard time accessing primary care. We believe we can give people the care they need and want and demand, when they need it," she said. DR. BRUCE LIANG Dr. Bruce Liang has been dean of the UConn School of Medicine since 2015. During his tenure, the medical school has seen extensive growth, having re- ceived record-break- ing research grant funding of over $100 million year after year. His success in that role landed him a promotion: In February, he was named interim CEO of UConn Health, the parent of John Dempsey Hospital in Farmington. It's a challenging job overseeing an aca- David Cordani Jennifer Jackson Lynne Rosen Christopher O'Connor Dr. Bruce Liang POWER 25 IN HEALTHCARE

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