CEO Weekly Update

Dear Colleagues,

This is a short week, and I hope it gives you some more time over the weekend to recuperate and care for yourself. Those who know me well will attest to the fact that I don't usually watch much sports, but I had the privilege of attending the UConn vs. Michigan State men's basketball game in Washington, D.C., last Friday. You might wonder why I am raising this in a weekly update. The reason is, I was actually there, with the UConn Foundation, to meet a subject matter expert and potential philanthropic supporter of our plan to launch the UConn Health AI Institute. After dinner we attended the game and it (as probably, the whole world knows) was a truly thrilling win. I didn't stay for the next game against Duke on Sunday but again, as you all know, that game turned out to be even more amazing, so much so it's difficult to describe. I can only say our student athletes - men and women - are unbelievably inspiring and make the rest of us so proud.

Given I am on the topic of sports, and a core theme of my updates is to thank all of you, I want to highlight the amazing work of our UConn Health sports medicine physicians who keep the student athletes safe and healthy.

That includes Dr. Robert Arciero and Dr. Allison Schafer, who have been traveling with the men's basketball team as team physicians, and who are heading to Indianapolis for the men's Final Four, and Dr. Katherine Coyner and Dr. Zachary Maass, who will be in Phoenix with the women's team as they look to repeat as NCAA champions.

Dr. Maass also worked with the men's ice hockey team along with Dr. Corey Dwyer, and I should also mention that Dr. Matthew Hall is a dedicated team physician with UConn Athletics and Dr. Anthony Alessi is a trusted consultant working closely with the program.

Our sports medicine physicians play important roles in ensuring the Huskies are ready to compete and helping them recover from injury - "unsung heroes," as women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma describes them in the promotional television ad we made for this year's tournament:

If all goes well, we'll be able to watch a UConn tournament basketball game every night from Friday to Monday. We wish the Huskies the best this weekend - win or lose, no one can dispute, both teams have had incredible seasons!

This week the senior leadership team and I spent a lot of time on a proposed partnership which I haven't referred to in previous updates, but which has been an exciting effort occurring in the background. Specifically, UConn Health is working with the Department of Children and Families on a planned partnership that would establish the Albert J. Solnit Children's Center-South Campus ("Solnit"), an adolescent psychiatric hospital in Middletown, as a satellite location of UConn John Dempsey Hospital. This collaboration with DCF reflects our shared commitment to delivering exceptional, high-quality, and specialized care for Connecticut's youth while optimizing resources across agencies.

Pending required approvals, we expect the partnership to be effective April 15, 2026, and I will keep you updated.

Speaking about psychiatry, as all of you know, I like to round in different areas of UConn Health periodically to thank our great employees for their work and to better understand how UConn Health can support that work. This week I, along with Caryl Ryan, chief nursing officer and UConn John Dempsey Hospital COO, CFO Jeff Geoghegan, and Carlos Iitsuka, VP for business development and analytics, had the privilege to visit our outpatient psychiatry facility at 10 Talcott Notch.

I would first like to say how impressed I was at the leadership of Genice Nelson, nursing director, and Leslie Bell, administrative director. Over the years they have made an already wonderful service even better both in terms of staffing, equipment, the aesthetics of the space, the reduction in the backlog of patients and so much more. One recent change that has been welcomed by patients is the presence of a security officer who wands patients as they exit the elevator. I had the pleasure of meeting Richard Wells, who wanded me (as is appropriate). I can testify it was a good experience, and the guard also hands out candy if I had been nervous.

You may be interested to know that the practice has eight APRNs, 11 attending MDs with residency clinics, six Ph.D.s, and four licensed clinical social workers. They see about 100 visits a day and what is really interesting is that almost half of those visits are virtual. I had the pleasure to meet Dr. Linda Durst, medical director, APRNs William Boafo, Sarah Napuli, and Bavitha Mathew, as well as a number of the other employees, including Lolita Felipe, clinical practice manager, nurse Carmelle Philippe, Drs. Surita Rao and Jayesh Kamath, social worker Nicole Durante, and clinic office assistant Ivette Martinez.

It was an inspiring visit that left me with two impressions: The first is that the psychiatry clinic truly makes a difference in patients' lives every day. The second is that it's the UConn Health employees, their passion, dedication, competence, vision and kindness that allow us to make that difference. My sincere thanks to each of you.

Within hours of my visit to 10 Talcott Notch, I learned of some very exciting news: The American Academy of Dermatology has elected our Dr. Jane Grant-Kels as its next president elect. Dr. Grant-Kels was the longtime chair of our Department of Dermatology, now serves as vice chair, and is a professor of dermatology, pathology, and pediatrics. Not only is this a tremendous point of pride for our Department of Dermatology and our medical school, it's also a well-deserved honor that recognizes Dr. Grant-Kels' legacy as a renowned expert in the field of dermatology, and she is perfect for this role. She will become president-elect effective March 2027, and assume the AAD presidency March 2028. Congratulations to Dr. Grant-Kels!

I have a letter to share praising Dr. Amanda Ulrich, OB-GYN, as well as our nurses (edited for length and privacy):

From my first appointment Dr. Ulrich she made feel at ease, like my symptoms were real and treated me with respect and care, which is often hard to come by. As I continued my appointments prior to surgery, she continued to listen and want to get me back to my best self. Each step of the process she explained everything clearly to ensure I understood exactly what she would be doing in surgery.

On the day of surgery I had an incredible experience with each of the nurses I interacted with. I wish I could have taken notes on each of their names and write a story to express my gratitude for every one of them. Surgery is a scary process and each of these nurses came to me with a smiling face, checked on me consistently, told me a funny story or held a conversation with me when I was getting nervous or not feeling well. From the pre-op nurses to OR nurses to post op I had an absolutely amazing interaction with each of them.

Lastly, Dr. Ulrich is involved in a study around endometriosis. I am very happy to see that she and UConn Health are investing in women's health.

Overall my experience was great and I would recommend Dr. Ulrich to any woman going through similar issues to my own, along with recommending UConn Health outpatient surgery overall.

This is just one example of the differences our work makes in the lives of people of Connecticut, and why our public academic medical center is a success story for the state of Connecticut.

As I alluded to in the opening we are engaged with the UConn Foundation on bringing that success story and our strategic plan's enterprise-wide initiatives to potential donors. In fact, working with the Foundation to grow our philanthropic support is one of our strategic initiatives. In that vein I'd like to call your attention to UConn Gives.

UConn Gives returns to UConn Health this year on April 21-22. This is an annual campaign from the UConn Foundation that gives all of us an opportunity to come together around our shared purpose of patient care, educating tomorrow's clinicians and scientists, and advancing research. We all can support this effort in our own way, as a donor or as an advocate. Please take a moment to learn more about UConn Gives 2026.

Finally, this is a holy weekend for many. Passover began at sundown last night and runs through next Thursday. Tomorrow is Good Friday and Sunday is Easter. Whatever this weekend means to you and your loved ones, I wish you a joyous holiday.

Thank you for all you do.

Andrew C. Agwunobi, MD, MBA

Chief Executive Officer

EVP for Health Affairs

UConn Health

I am trying to find a work/life balance while working nightshift within John Dempsey. At my previous job at a nearby hospital, they provided staff with a gym to use, while here we have to pay in order to use it. The fee is the same amount; not matter what tax bracket you fall under. Speaking with seasoned employees, there wasn't always a fee to use the gym on campus. Why has there been a fee added for employees to use the gym?

Thank you for writing and for sharing your perspective, which I've shared with our Office of Professional Well-Being and Engagement. I appreciate you raising this, particularly as a night-shift employee-finding time and space to focus on well-being during off-hours is not easy, and your point is an important one.

Since opening, the Wellness Center has operated as a membership-based facility. It is not a profit-making operation, so we set modest membership fees (less than $3.50/week) to help support operations, equipment maintenance and replacement, and wellness programming so the center can remain open, safe, and high-quality for our workforce. To ensure fairness and consistency, the fee structure is applied uniformly across employees.

At the same time, we are committed to offering a range of well-being resources that are available to all employees at no cost. For example, our upcoming 30-Days of Healthy Habits challenge and other programs throughout the year are designed to support physical, mental, and emotional well-being in flexible ways that can fit a variety of schedules, including night shift.

Thank you again for the question. Your feedback helps us continue to improve how we support the well-being of our workforce.

Is it possible to distribute the list of med students who matched and where they are heading? It would be really nice for those of us who know these students but haven't interacted with them recently (coaches, etc.).