Hartford Business Journal

20 Hartford Business Journal • March 26, 2018 • www.HartfordBusiness.com GREATER HARTFORD HEALTH • Spring 2018 CEO Verrastro helps grow Farmington fertility clinic's mission, reach \\ By John Stearns P aul Verrastro thought he'd be a government policy wonk in public health, not working in health care, but he found his calling running a facility that helps couples struggling with infertility have babies. He landed at the Farmington-based Center for Advanced Reproductive Services almost 20 years ago and was promoted to CEO last spring from chief operating officer. "I fell in love with the emotion of [obstetrics] and fertility just took it to a whole new level," said Verrastro, 53, who grew up in Waterbury, attended college in New York City and spent five years there with St. Vincent's Hospital as a practice coordinator, then women's practice administrator before joining the Center. He speaks like a proud father as he describes its work. "I always say to people, this center is like my child," Verrastro said. "I'm really protec- tive of it, I'm really proud of it, I try to make sure everybody does right by it because it provides such a critical mission to people." It's a life-creating mission of helping couples have babies, through in vitro fer- tilization (IVF) and intrauterine insemi- nation, (IUI). The Center has been responsible for 12,000-plus live births since 1982. Society, science, technology and insur- ance have changed a lot since then in ways that have benefited the growing industry. Trends include more women having babies later due to their career focus, waiting for Mr. Right or second marriages. By their late-30s, though, women are considered of advanced maternal age because their natural fertility begins to diminish and egg quantity and quality decline, increasing risk of chro- mosomal abnormalities. Science, however, allows preimplanta- tion genetic screening, taking embryos from an IVF cycle, testing them for genet- ic abnormalities, then implanting only a healthy embryo. Also, insurance coverage for IVF cycles was extended beyond age 40 under the Affordable Care Act. While women are trending older, 60 per- cent of the Center's patients still remain under 37, according to Verrastro. For women up to age 37 in IVF, there's about a 60 to 64 percent chance of a live birth occurring and about 80 percent will get preg- nant within their first year of trying, he said. It ranks well versus national averages, Verrastro said, citing the latest Society for Advanced Reproductive Technology data from 2015. The Center has been "pretty much No. 1 in the state for, I'd say, the last 15 years," measured by live births, he said. Through another trend, elective single embryo transfer, the Center has greatly reduced the chances of a mother having multiple babies at once, which can result in premature delivery, lower birth weights and expensive stays in neonatal intensive care units, which insurers want to avoid. "Our goal is to identify one super embryo to put back to have one baby and that is the result of improved technology and proce- dures throughout the clinic," Verrastro said, adding that for all IVF births where patients used their own eggs, 82 percent led to a sin- gle child being born. { Executive Profile } Paul Verrastro CEO, Center for Advanced Reproductive Services, Farmington. Highest education: Master's in public administration, New York University, 1995. Executive insight: Mindfulness principles have been helpful and trying to lead by those principles and encourage staff to embrace them has been a key ingredient to the success of the organization. H B J P H O T O S \ \ J O H N S T E A R N S

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