Hartford Business Journal

12 Hartford Business Journal • April 16, 2018 • www.HartfordBusiness.com By Matt Pilon mpilon@HartfordBusiness.com D r. Reginald J. Eadie, the newly named CEO of the fledgling Trinity Health of New England system, has been moving up the healthcare management ladder for years, but he's always found at least some time to see patients by picking up weekend emergency room shifts. It was important to him to maintain a connection to the community, some- thing Eadie referred to often during a recent interview at St. Francis Hospi- tal and Medical Center, whose parent company hired him after about 20 years within the Detroit Medical Center (DMC) system, as well as a stint at the John D. Dingell VA Medical Center in Michigan. A hospital CEO seeing patients is rare, Eadie acknowledged, but then again, many hospital CEOs don't have medical degrees. Eadie, who trained as an emergency medicine physician and later spe- cialized in treating obesity, stopped seeing patients a year ago to focus on his increasing responsibilities at DMC, but he said he hopes to bring a similar approach to his new role at Trinity Health, which has four Connecticut hospitals and another in Springfield. "I'm a big time community person," Eadie said. "I'm a servant leader and I have to be in touch with the community." One of Eadie's goals is to get Trin- ity's area hospitals — which just a few years ago were disparate entities but are now part of the third-largest health system in Connecticut by rev- enue — working in tandem as much as possible. He calls it "systemness." "Get the system operating as a sys- tem," he said. "I've seen that happen very well. I've seen that happen very poorly." As part of that ongoing work, Trin- ity Health earlier this year began leasing 55,000 square feet of office space in Bloomfield for more than 200 finance and billing staffers who serve the entire system. Eadie, who started March 26 and succeeds Christopher Dadlez, said he will also be focused on patient experi- ence, population health and lowering costs. Adding value for patients and payors will be important, he said. With hospital merger activity keeping up a steady clip of late, Eadie wouldn't say if Trinity Health is look- ing to add to its portfolio. "We're not necessarily trying to ac- quire, build," he said. "But we're trying to satisfy need." Asked about Hartford HealthCare's recently announced plans to acquire St. Vincent's Hospital and Medical Center in Bridgeport — a Catholic hospital — Eadie said Trinity Health officials had been involved in discus- sions with St. Vincent's at one point. He declined to elaborate further. Inverted pyramid In Michigan, Eadie served on the board of a science and medicine high school and led a campaign urging Unified System New Trinity Health CEO pledges community approach in competitive healthcare market Dr. Reginald Eadie says his years of experience in a multi-hospital system in Michigan will be of value to the young Trinity Health of New England system, which is anchored by St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford. HBJ PHOTOS | STEVE LASCHEVER

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