Ms. Ficara leads Hartford Hospital, an 867-bed academic medical center and regional referral center that serves as Hartford HealthCare’s flagship, and serves as senior vice president of the broader health system. She serves as executive sponsor of “HHC 2035,” Hartford HealthCare’s $1 billion, 10-year investment to reimagine the Hartford Hospital campus, including a new 14-story tower spanning more than 500,000 square feet with three floors of procedure space and 216 private inpatient beds. The plan also includes a new arrival center with 1,600 parking spaces, an emergency department expansion, a medical observation unit and new oncology clinics. Ms. Ficara joined Hartford Hospital’s nursing leadership in 1990 and was promoted to president after guiding the hospital through the Covid-19 pandemic as its clinical care redesign executive leader. She has developed several systemwide nursing initiatives, including a nursing strategic plan, a professional practice council, and an operating room and surgical technician fellowship, and she chairs the system’s nurse executive council. Under her leadership, Hartford Hospital has earned multiple consecutive “A” safety grades from the Leapfrog Group and received the American Hospital Association’s 2025 “Quest for Quality Prize.” In January 2026, Hartford HealthCare became the first health system in the nation to have all of its cancer centers recognized as MSK Care Partners.
