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HEALTHCARE HEROES | 2026 AWARDS HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | SEPTEMBER 21, 2026 B5 Tell us about a challenge in your job that you were able to overcome. We have scaled from one client to over 100 in the past year, causing stress on recruiting, care management and care coordination. While our utilization of advanced AI has helped, I've been integral to ensuring we are always prioritizing our time to the clients that are most in need. What's your next major goal and/or challenge? We recently opened a New Jersey office in Short Hills and are about to launch our medical operation in Connecticut. We are building out new teams to support our growth initiatives. Winner Category | Innovation Daisy Petrov Director of Clinical Outreach Endurance Home Care D aisy Petrov is director of clinical outreach at Endurance Home Care, which provides in-home care for older adults, including personal and companion care, memory support and around-the-clock care. She leads Endurance Home Care's clin- ical team, which coordinates care plans, trains caregivers and works with clients, their families and medical providers to improve clients' quality of life. She also works at Stamford Hospital on the cardiology floor and volunteers in the community. What makes you a Healthcare Hero? Over the past year, our team has partnered with more than 100 fami- lies to manage both the medical and non-medical aspects of their care. I am in the homes of dozens of patients every week training caregivers and assisting clients and their families. I have also helped with the early detection of multiple diseases, including cancer and early-onset dementia. Tell us about a challenge in your job that you were able to overcome. My job has its challenges, especially as it pertains to the mental health field. Stigma surrounding mental health unfortunately remains, so every day I try to improve this perception by communicating openly with patients and families, and providing as much education as possible to help folks better understand mental illness, its treatment, and how to support their loved one who may be struggling. What's your next major goal and/or challenge? As I approach being a year into my role as chair, I am thrilled about what we have accomplished as a team thus far, and where we will go next. I am hoping to expand educational opportunities for our team members, encouraging attendance at conferences and participation in training courses to learn the most up-to-date advances in our field to best help our patients and improve access to care. Winner Category | Mental Healthcare Provider of the Year Dr. Kourtney J. Koslosky Chair, Department of Psychiatry Greenwich Hospital D r. Kourtney Koslosky is chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Greenwich Hospital and assistant chair of the Yale Department of Psychiatry at Greenwich Hospital. She oversees adult and adolescent outpa- tient services, interventional psychiatric services and psychiatric services for emer- gency department and hospital patients. She also sees patients and teaches and mentors Yale medical students. What makes you a Healthcare Hero? What I find most significant is my work in developing Care Signature Pathways for psychiatry and behavioral health for use across our hospital system. ese are condition-specific algorithms created by clinicians that promote evidence-based approaches to psychiatric care. I have been on five clinical pathway develop- ment teams (acute mania, opiate use disorder, first episode psychosis, acute agitation, substance use in the hospital) and serve on the Clinical Care Signature Council, which oversees and approves all proposed treatment pathways. Care Signature Pathways have been used frequently since their implementa- tion to provide patients with consistent care of the highest quality. Winner Category | Innovation Dr. Shea C. Gregg CEO & Founder FallCall Solutions LLC D r. Shea Gregg is a husband, father, trauma surgeon, surgical leader and CEO of the digital medical alert company, FallCall Solutions. In 2015, Dr. Gregg founded his company after observing that older adult trauma victims rarely wore traditional medical alerts yet were increasingly using mobile devices. e "FallCall Detect" app is now being used by thousands internationally. What makes you a Healthcare Hero? Although resources can be leveraged within hospital systems to achieve the vision of "connected healthcare for all," expertise can also be found outside the healthcare setting that clinicians can uniquely harness to create solutions that haven't been dreamed of. is is my comfort zone. Over the past year, I have worked with the FallCall team to raise the finances to scale our digital platform, forge new vendor/managed care organization rela- tionships, achieve "Medicaid Provider" status, and build the most trustworthy brand that aims to inspire older adults to seek out our safety solutions. e result: Subscriptions have grown 20% over six months, more caregivers know exactly when a loved one falls, more fall victims get immediate help and FallCall has become the top-rated fall detection app on the US App Store. Tell us about a challenge in your job that you were able to overcome. e medical alert industry has not significantly innovated for decades. Becoming the first member of the Connected Health and Safety Associa- tion's board to have successfully scaled a personal emergency response app for Apple Watch and mobile devices has validated the importance of our tech- nology to the future of older adult safety. What's your next major goal and/or challenge? FallCall was built on the foundation of being accessible, simple and afford- able. To this end, I look to expand our offerings to 10 to 15 additional state Medicaid programs over the next nine to 12 months to achieve our vision of truly providing "connected healthcare for all." Winner Category | Innovation Dr. Kelsey Gray Assistant Professor, Cardiac Surgery; Director of Cardiothoracic Transplant and ECMO/Mechanical Circulatory Support Yale University/Yale New Haven Health D r. Kelsey Gray is a cardiac surgeon at Yale New Haven Hospital and assistant professor of surgery at Yale University. She is the director of Cardiothoracic Transplantation and ECMO/Mechanical Circulatory Support. She earned her medical degree from the University of Washington, completed general surgery residency at Harbor- UCLA and trained in cardiac surgery at University Hospitals/Case Western Reserve University. She specializes in transplantation and robotic minimally invasive cardiac surgery. What makes you a Healthcare Hero? I started at Yale in September 2025 with the goal of reestablishing the robotic cardiac surgery program. Working closely with a dedicated multi- disciplinary team, our first robotic case was performed that same month. A year later, we have completed more than 80 robotic cardiac surgery cases. is growing experience includes well-established procedures such as robotic-assisted minimally invasive coro- nary artery bypass grafting and mitral valve repair. However, it also includes much less common procedures including robotic aortic valve replacement and totally endoscopic coronary artery bypass grafting, which are only performed at a handful of institutions worldwide. I have also partnered with our congen- ital colleagues and have started offering robotic adult congenital surgeries. I am exceedingly proud of the rapid growth of this program because we are now able to offer our patients less invasive surgical options for many procedures that historically have not been done through a minimally invasive approach. Tell us about a challenge in your job that you were able to overcome. e most difficult part of starting and then growing the robotic cardiac surgery program was getting the word out to patients, cardiologists and other referring physicians. Many people don't know that there is likely a minimally invasive alternative to the open cardiac surgery they have been offered. ere will always be some surgeries that require an open, more traditional approach, but many patients that need valve surgery or coronary artery bypass grafting can have that surgery done with a robotic minimally invasive approach. What's your next major goal and/or challenge? I would love to see more patients with the opportunity to have their surgery done via a robotic minimally invasive approach. I will continue to work to grow the visibility of our program so that more people are aware of their options.

