Ms. Handley, a nurse by training, serves as regional president of Hartford HealthCare’s East Region, overseeing two acute-care hospitals: the William W. Backus Hospital in Norwich, Conn. and Windham (Conn.) Community Memorial Hospital, along with the system’s other services throughout eastern Connecticut. She sits on Hartford HealthCare’s executive leadership committee and, drawing on her oncology background, remains involved in strategic planning for the Hartford HealthCare Cancer Institute. As a former operations executive for the cancer institute, Ms. Handley unified cancer services across the system and was instrumental in it becoming the nation’s first Care Partner of New York City-based Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, as well as in developing Connecticut’s first proton beam therapy center through a partnership with Yale New Haven (Conn.) Health. Under her leadership, both Backus and Windham hospitals earned “A” safety grades from the Leapfrog Group in 2023, 2024 and 2025. In 2022, Backus was also named one of “America’s 250 Best Hospitals” by Healthgrades and recognized by U.S. News & World Report as a “Best Hospital for Maternity Care.” Ms. Handley serves as a trustee of the Connecticut Hospital Association and on the American Heart Association’s Connecticut Regional Board.
