Jeffrey A. Flaks, executive vice president and chief operating officer (COO) of Hartford Hospi-tal and executive vice president of Hartford HealthCare (HHC) has been appointed the 21st president and CEO of Hartford Hospital, effective August 1.

Flaks assumes his new role from Elliot Joseph, who will re-tain his title of president and CEO of Hartford HealthCare.

This change places a highly-re-spected and experienced Hart-ford Hospital executive at the helm of the 157-year-old insti-tution and represents a major milestone in the evolution of Hartford HealthCare as the re-gion’s premier health care de-livery network.

“Hartford Hospital and Hart-ford HealthCare each will ben-efit from having its own dedi-cated leader,” Joseph said.

“As CEO, Jeff Flaks will provide the strong and steady leadership need-ed as we enter a new era in health care with federal health care re-form,” he said. “He led a number of initiatives at Hartford Hospital that have resulted in greatly improved facilities and increased patient and staff satisfaction. Hartford Hospital has become known nationally as a medical center that provides excel-lent patient care with the most in-novative technology and in a com-passionate way.”

As CEO, Jeff Flaks will provide the strong and steady leadership needed as we enter a new era in health care with federal health care reform.

Flaks came to Hartford Hospi-tal in 2007 from MidState Med-ical Center in Meriden where he served as COO from 2004 to 2007.

Prior to MidState, he held lead-ership positions at St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers of New York, Beth Israel Medical Center in New York and the De-troit Medical Center in south-eastern Michigan.

Flaks was named among the 2001 Crain’s New York Business “New York’s Rising Stars: 40 un-der 40” and by Modern Health-care as one of 12 national in-dustry leaders selected as a “2001 Up & Comer.”

In 2003, he received the Ameri-can College of Healthcare Exec-utive’s Regents Award for out-standing leadership.

He was elected and served on the Board of Trustees of George Washington University and re-ceived the highest honor bestowed from George Washington Universi-ty’s president — the Distinguished Alumni Service Award — in 2006.

He also was honored as a member of the Hartford Business Journal’s “Class of 2008 Up-and-Coming Exec-utives” for his commitment to busi-ness growth, personal excellence and deep community involvement.

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Flaks Named President/CEO of Hartford Hospital

RxTraA publication for the staff of Hartford Hospital July 26, 2011 Vol. 67 No. 27

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Among his many community activities, Flaks is a member of the board of visitors of the Uni-versity of Hartford’s College of Education, Nursing and Health Professions; a director of The Urban League of Greater Hart-ford and a board member of The Children’s Museum.

He is also a fellow of the Amer-ican College of Healthcare Ex-ecutives; and a practitioner on the National Board of the American Association of Uni-versity Programs in Health Ad-ministration (AUPHA).

Flaks is a graduate of George Washington University with a master’s degree in health services administration and earned his bachelor of science at Ithaca College.

“I’m honored to lead Hartford Hos-pital,” Flaks said. “We have an extraordinary staff that is engaged in making Hart-ford Hospital the fine institu-tion that it is. I look forward to our continued work togeth-er, our continued drive to im-prove the patient experience and our continued service to our community.”

Joseph came to Hartford Hos-pital in 2008 as president and CEO of both the hospital and Hart-ford HealthCare. He will now focus all his energies on the health care system, which includes Hartford Hospital, The Hospital of Central Connecticut, MidState Medical Cen-ter, Windham Hospital, Hartford and MidState medical groups, Natchaug Hospital, Rushford, VNA Health-Care and VNA of Central Connecti-cut, and a number of long-term care facilities.

“With a health care system made up of 15,000 staff members and more than 80 locations, and with the coming of health care reform and

the challenges it will bring, we be-lieve we need to follow best practic-es with a CEO who concentrates on the system as a whole,” said Ramani Ayer, chairman of the HHC Board of Directors, which approved the lead-ership change, along with the Hart-ford Hospital Board of Directors.

“The changes we’ve made over the past two years to strengthen HHC point to the logic of establishing a system-only CEO. We have a system board, strategy, vision and values,”

Joseph said. “We’re working to build a truly integrated health care sys-tem that provides top-quality, com-prehensive, coordinated care for the

patient throughout the patient’s lifetime – from primary and specialty care, to hos-pital services, to reha-bilitation and behav-ioral health services, to home care, to long-term care. We are fo-cused on providing easily accessible care in communities as well as easy access to com-

plex care when the patient needs it. The patient is the focus of every-thing we do today and as we move forward.”

“I look forward to my continued work with Elliot and the other lead-ers in the HHC system,” Flaks said.

“The health care industry faces chal-lenges and we have great confidence in our ability to meet those challeng-es head on and continue to provide top-quality, innovative, comprehen-sive care to our patients,” Flaks said.

I look forward to our contin-ued work together, our contin-ued drive to improve the patient experience and our continued service to our community.

Flaks Named President/CEO of Hartford Hospital

Jeffrey Flaks discusses hospital business with Rita Parisi (left), CEO of Eastern Rehabilitation Network, an HHC partner.