Dear Colleagues,

Amidst this beautiful spring weather, it has been another transformative week for UConn Health. On April 15 we welcomed an additional hospital, the 50-bed Albert J. Solnit Hospital (“JDH-Solnit”) to our UConn John Dempsey Hospital (JDH) license. I want to pause here and thank the multi-agency teams that made this possible. I was so impressed with the speed, collaboration, and competency of the leaders and personnel of the Department of Children and Families, the Office of Policy and Management, and UConn Health. Other agencies which worked on aspects of this transition were Department of Social Services and Department of Public Health. Sitting in those twice-weekly meetings I felt proud to be an employee of the state of Connecticut.

We are now in a phase of working closely with JDH-Solnit leadership, employees and unions to ensure a seamless transition that elevates care for this important and vulnerable population of patients.

Going back to the word “transformation”: This is often a buzzword but, in our case, it’s real. If we count the 23 beds awarded to JDH in February of last year and the JDH-Solnit beds I just mentioned, JDH has grown from its historical size of 234 beds to 307 beds. If we then add the UConn Health Community Network beds at UConn Health Waterbury Hospital (357), our total bed count (across two separate licenses) is 664 beds. Once we add Bristol Hospital (157 beds) and Day Kimball Hospital (104 beds) to the UConn Health Community Network, this count will rise to 925 beds. With this size we will have substantially achieved the scale necessary to position ourselves for success in Connecticut’s consolidated health care ecosystem.

Scale is important but even more important is delivering high-quality, safe patient care. That must always be our focus as we grow. As you know we have achieved 10 consecutive A-ratings in safety from the Leapfrog organization and are the only hospital in Connecticut to receive Healthgrades’ Outstanding Patient Experience award for the last two years.

Awards are important validation, but nothing is better than real patient and employee stories. One such story is that of a life-saving response to a medical emergency on our lower campus last week. Anne Horbatuck, University Medical Group COO and VP for ambulatory services wrote the following account:

I wanted to share a very positive patient event that happened in our Musculoskeletal Institute third floor orthopedic area. A patient’s husband coded. The staff in orthopedics did not stop for a second and jumped into action, as did our fire department. The feedback the team received was that this patient wouldn’t have made it if it wasn’t for this heroic team including (nurse practitioners Jill Arcardi and Kayla Callanan, medical assistants Jacquline Vega and Yanira Ortiz, Dr. Craig Rodner, Dr. Anthony Parrino, Dr. Kevin Becker, who was passing by and noticed the patient, and, from our fire department, Lt. Joshua Levin, Capt. Anthony Ruggiero, Capt. Neil Prendergast, firefighter Brian Bonapace, and firefighter Scott Moro.)

Cindy Poglitsch, the clinical coordinator there, said, “This was really something impressive to witness! But as I mull it over again and again, it blows my mind what I saw. A man died in front of me, and I watched people that I work with everyday save him, twice. That is profound!! No second thought, no stop to think, just do, and they sure did!! That needs to be honored and celebrated!”

We have been in the process of doing mock drills in our outpatient areas. A number of times people think that there is no need as things like this happen only in the hospital, and no need to be BLS certified…well it does happen here. This “heroic” team jumped into action and saved this person. This is amazing and I can say that I am so very, very proud of this group and our team.

Do we always have things we can learn – yes – but this is a job well done and I wanted to THANK THEM for what they did, how they saved this person’s life and how their dedication, quality care is what we stand for here at UConn Health.

THANK YOU ALL!

Anne

I echo Anne’s sentiments – This story is a truly inspiring example of competence, caring and emergency readiness, but most of all how the physicians and employees of UConn Health make a real difference in people’s lives, in this case literally saving a life. Thank you to Jill Arcardi, Kayla Callanan, Jacquline Ortiz, Yanira Ortiz, Dr. Craig Rodner, Dr. Anthony Parrino, Dr. Kevin Becker, Lt. Joshua Levin, Capt. Anthony Ruggiero, Capt. Neil Prendergast, firefighters Brian Bonapace and Scott Moro, and everyone else who was involved.

Meanwhile, if you haven’t had a chance yet, I hope you can find a few minutes to read the story published on UConn Today about the life-saving care we provided to a young man who came to us with a rare and aggressive form of cancer.

This inspiring story is a perfect example of the compassion, expertise, collaboration, and patient-centeredness that defines our physicians and employees. It also exemplifies the reason for our deep academic mission for the people of Connecticut.

I’d like to express my gratitude to the many multidisciplinary team members involved for making both of these incredible stories possible.

I’d also like to share something I received from Mark Boxer, one of the members of the UConn Health Board of Directors, following an interaction he had with Beatrice Simmonds:

That note from Mark speaks for itself. Kudos, Beatrice, and thank you!

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Switching to UConn Health finances, it’s hard to believe we are rapidly approaching the end of fiscal year 2026 (June 30) and are already preparing our budget for FY 27.  The good news is that for this year we have achieved our Project Thrive targeted savings. Some still has to be realized, i.e., brought into the budget, but we have identified the full $46.7M and will be able to balance the FY26 budget as we promised the board of directors a year ago. 

Just to wrap up our report on some of the metrics:

We have held the increase in our workforce to just 97 permanent positions so far this fiscal year. This is a smaller increase compared to the last two fiscal years and will help keep our salary and fringe expenses from increasing. However, we continue to add positions to revenue-generating areas.

In FY25 we averaged $424K in overtime per pay period. Through 21 pay periods of FY26 we are averaging $422K per pay period. If that pace continues we project an OT spend similar to last fiscal year.

The value of non-holiday compensatory time being earned per pay period this fiscal year is averaging nearly $22K. That average is still below the FY25 average. If we continue at this pace we may be able to save almost $200K compared to the previous fiscal year.

We are averaging almost $32K per pay period in salary savings in FY26 with the Voluntary Schedule Reduction Program. Our goal is to save $500K, and if we maintain the current pace we are very likely to exceed that target and end the year closer to an $800K savings.

Again, thank you for all your efforts on this year’s Project Thrive. As I mentioned in my last weekly update, we are now switching our efforts to planning for next year’s Project Thrive. 

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Early last month, our new Torrington office quietly opened with the relocation of the internal medicine practice from our previous Torrington location. We now offer several additional services in the new location, at 507 E. Main St., including orthopedics, vascular medicine, and imaging, with lab services to follow next week, comprehensive spine next month, and more to follow later this year.

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As we continue to seek fair reimbursements from payors, I have an update on Cigna. Good faith negotiations with Cigna are ongoing as we continue to pursue a fair agreement. We are awaiting Cigna’s response to our April 9 proposal, which consisted of fee-for-service rate increases and language revisions. To speed up Cigna’s response, an in-person meeting with our contracting team took place on Wednesday, April 15. Progress is slow but we continue to press forward.

Both Cigna and UConn Health have sent letters to patients informing them of the possibility that UConn Health will go out of network effective May 1 without an agreement. Obviously, we would like to avoid going out of network to avoid disruption for our patients, so I am hopeful we can reach a fair agreement soon.

Key dates to be aware of as negotiations continue in the coming days/weeks:

• On April 1, UConn Health stopped scheduling Cigna patients for services on or after May 1, 2026.
• • On April 14, UConn Health began canceling appointments for Cigna patients scheduled for services between May 1 and May 10. Cancellations will continue weekly until an agreement is reached.

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Next week is Health Care Volunteer Week. Did you know we have a dedicated group of active, regularly scheduled volunteers supporting our guest services teams in the main building, University Tower, Outpatient Pavilion, and UConn Musculoskeletal Institute? In addition, volunteers generously give their time in the emergency department, medical records, our medical school, spiritual care, lost and found, the dental clinic, and in our Purposeful Visits program.

In total, 48 volunteers donate their time and talents to help enhance the patient experience across our organization. Please join me in thanking them for their generosity, commitment, and compassion.

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As previously mentioned, UConn Gives is coming next week, April 21-22, and it’s a meaningful opportunity to come together as one UConn Health community. Over these two days, faculty, staff, students, alumni, patients, and friends will unite to support the programs and people making a difference across our institution. Every gift, at any level, helps strengthen the mission we share: advancing education, research, and exceptional patient care. I’m grateful for the many ways our community continues to show up for one another.

I encourage our faculty and staff to participate via a philanthropic gift to UConn Gives by supporting UConn Health and the cause that matters most to you. Whether you’re passionate about student success, research innovation, patient care, or workforce well-being, your participation sends a powerful message of pride in our work and confidence in our future.

I’m also pleased to share that every dollar you give to UConn Health during UConn Gives will be matched dollar for dollar (up to the first $10,000), thanks to a generous matching pool from the UConn Health executive team. Together, as one UConn, our collective support will have a lasting impact for everyone connected to UConn Health. Thank you in advance for your support!

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Finally, how many of us can say we’ve had the governor proclaim a day in our name? That’s what Governor Lamont did this week, proclaiming April 15 as Petra Clark-Dufner Day. Petra is the director of the Connecticut Area Health Education Center (CT AHEC), and this honor recognizes her more than three decades of strengthening Connecticut’s health professions pipeline and expanding access to health care services in under-resourced communities. I invite you to read more about her and her proclamation on UConn Today.

Thank you, Petra, for being so amazing, and thank you to everyone reading this, for all the work you do.

Andrew C. Agwunobi, MD, MBA
Chief Executive Officer
EVP for Health Affairs
UConn Health

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Dear Dr. Andy

Will UConn Health consider adding an MRI machine to the freestanding UConn Health Imaging facility at 5 Munson Road? I order a lot of breast MRIs, and I have had an increasing number of insurance plans approve the test but not the UConn facility because our MRIs are considered a hospital-based test. I have sometimes been able to get the UConn facility approved through multiple rounds of peer-to-peers with the insurance company, but it is time consuming and only intermittently successful even after explaining the importance of all breast imaging being done at the same facility with the same radiology group. I know MRI machines are very expensive, but adding a machine that is considered “outpatient” by insurance companies may help avoid the lost revenue of having to refer this imaging out of UConn Health.

Thank you for raising this; I’ve shared it with our leaders in radiology. Health insurances steer patients to outpatient imaging sites for their MRI imaging needs due to lower costs versus inpatient imaging sites. It’s why we added our outpatient MRI at UConn Health Imaging at the Brain and Spine Institute, 5 Munson Road, which has been a great success and imaging outpatients at full capacity. We certainly have the clinical demand for additional outpatient MRI imaging to care for our outpatients. Thankfully, patients from outside facilities are also looking to UConn Health for their medical imaging needs.

An additional outpatient UConn Radiology MRI would also greatly help decompress our single MRI at John Dempsey Hospital (JDH), which images both inpatients and outpatients. This would greatly decrease our wait times for imaging of our inpatients, improve our lengths of stay, and help ensure our patients at JDH would receive prompt outpatient imaging, once discharged.

The challenge is, adding additional outpatient and inpatient MRIs at UConn Health would require a certificate of need (CON), issued by the state of Connecticut.

There certainly is much validity to your suggestion, and I thank you for sharing it.

Have something you want to ask Dr. Andy? Submit your question on The Hub.

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Hub Highlights

Get the details on this year’s UConn Gives, coming next week.

Learn more about a high-profile national role for Dr. Jane Grant-Kels.

Plus, read more about the colleague who had a day proclaimed in her honor by Governor Lamont.