He recently spoke with Becker’s about Yale New Haven Health’s priorities for the year ahead, including strategies to overcome these challenges and other initiatives such as recent acquisitions.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Question: Yale New Haven Health has made significant moves to expand its geographic reach and service capabilities. What specific strategies are in place for 2025 to expand access to care for underserved populations in the region, and how do you plan to address barriers such as transportation and affordability?
Christopher O’Connor: Yale New Haven has had a long history, particularly with our sites in Bridgeport and New Haven, of being a safety-net provider within the state. We’re the state’s leading Medicaid provider, and we obviously have our fair share of uncompensated care that we work with every year. Those strategies are particularly of interest in terms of how we improve access for all populations, but with an obvious focus on those that are most vulnerable, to ensure they have access to good healthcare as they need it.
We’ve seen, mostly because of demand, that our availability is certainly not what our patients need or expect. So, we’ve put a fair amount of effort into our access initiatives. We’ve turned to a project called Access 365, and it’s an overhaul of the patient experience with all of our providers. We’re about halfway through, and I would say there have been positive results, but it’s still a work in progress.
Q: Outpatient care has become a critical focus area for health systems nationwide. How is Yale New Haven Health enhancing its outpatient and ambulatory care services to meet patient demand, and what role do you see these services playing in the system’s growth strategy?
CO: It’s core, because at this stage, our hospital expansions are going to be limited. Connecticut is a relatively small state, and the opportunities are fewer and farther between. So, our ambulatory growth is part of our core strategic initiative, and we’re looking at that to expand our patient reach.
As an academic health system, we pride ourselves on our tertiary and quaternary care, but at the end of the day, primary and secondary care are really what most patients experience first with the health system. The broader that reach and the broader the access points, the more effective we believe our connectivity will be to our patients.
Q: The health system has leveraged partnerships to enhance its reach and service capabilities. How do recent collaborations, such as the acquisition of Nelson Ambulance or partnerships in specialized care, contribute to your mission of improving access to timely and high-quality healthcare?
CO: In my vision, they’re very important. The two most recent acquisitions the system has made — Nelson Ambulance and PhysicianOne — are key. Nelson is very new, so we’re still in the earliest days of integrating and maximizing it. Patient transportation is a key barrier, both for inpatient work among our hospitals and in our ambulatory space. Nelson represents our first transportation vehicle relationship, and we’re excited about creating a more seamless experience for our patients.
The second one is PhysicianOne, an urgent care network we purchased a little over a year ago. Like primary care, it’s a core access point for patients with more urgent-based needs. So far, we’ve had great success in that integration. It provides a very seamless and patient-friendly experience.
Q: Digital health and telemedicine have been transformative in recent years. What digital health tools or telemedicine initiatives are being implemented to improve access to care in 2025, particularly for patients in rural or underserved areas?
CO: It’s a tool. The reality we’ve seen at Yale New Haven is that while it provides incredible access and ubiquity, a lot of patients still want to see their provider face to face. Since COVID, we’ve seen a decline in the number of visits happening through an electronic format.
There continues to be uncertainty around reimbursement and how it will work. We keep getting these short-term fixes, but there’s no long-term strategy. However, it clearly has a role. It’s very efficient and universally accessible, which is important. We’ve deployed it widely across the system. One area where we’ve had tremendous success is mental health, and I suspect that will only grow and provide greater accessibility for all patients, regardless of their ability to pay or the issues they’re dealing with. That’s the beauty of the platform — it can serve all patients.
Q: Are there any key initiatives, such as workforce retention and recruitment strategies, that you’d like to share with your peers?
CO: There are two big areas that keep me up at night. One is financial sustainability. We’re struggling with high labor costs and challenging reimbursements, particularly in Medicaid. The second is the workforce.
We’ve highlighted an opportunity to partner rather than do everything internally. This month, we began a partnership with global management consulting firm Korn Ferry to assist in our talent acquisition process. We’re excited about the tools and best practices this partnership will bring as we continue to modernize and address our workforce challenges.