August 7, 2026

CEO Update

Dear Colleagues,



I hope you are managing to stay cool during this hot and humid week.



Our employee engagement survey ends tonight, but that’s just the beginning of our work on continuous improvement.

Over the past four weeks, I have watched UConn Health come together around an important purpose: ensuring that the experiences of our employees are heard.

Leaders have created time for their teams to participate. Colleagues have encouraged one another. Departments have rallied around some friendly competition. Our Office of Professional Well-Being and Engagement brought the conversation directly to employees across our campuses, and Jonathan covered 9.5 miles helping them do it. Employees also raised candid questions about confidentiality, trust, and whether they will see meaningful change within their own workplaces.

Those conversations matter.

As of noon, 3,274 employees, 63% of our eligible workforce, have participated. We have surpassed our 2024 participation rate and are 129 responses away from reaching our 65% goal.

More importantly, every response represents an employee who cared enough to tell us what is working, what needs to improve, and what UConn Health can become.

If your voice is not yet among them, there is still time. Please find your final Press Ganey reminder sent to your email this morning, and take a few minutes to complete the survey before it closes tonight (Friday midnight).

Please know, when the survey closes, responsibility shifts to us: to listen carefully, share what we learn, and make progress visible across UConn Health and within our individual workplaces.

Thank you to everyone who has brought us this far. Let’s use these final hours to hear from as many colleagues as possible.

The survey ends tonight, but our work is just beginning.

I have another ask of you: Please hold the date for my next town hall: Wednesday, Sept. 16, at noon in Keller auditorium (and also virtual). Please attend if you can, and I invite you to submit your questions for my leadership team and me to thquestion@uchc.edu.

I’m happy to report that we’ve received another accolade from U.S. News & World Report, this time as “high performing” in the category of Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma.

This is based on patient outcome data from more than 800,000,000 records of patient care among more than 4,400 U.S. hospitals. Fewer than half the hospitals surveyed earned a “high performing” ranking in any category.



Congratulations and thank you to our specialists in hematology/oncology and all blood disorders, as well as all of those who support their outstanding patient care. 

Four of our medical students recently took the time to make the case for state investment in our public academic medical center, and offered it to the Hartford Courant. I’m happy to report, their piece ran this week.

Not only do these future physicians express the importance of our mission as a public academic medical center, they also articulate how the benefits of a strong medical school go beyond students and faculty, but also to patients and the broader community.

I invite you to take a moment to read it:

Opinion: The urgent imperative to fully fund CT’s only public academic medical center

Thank you to Claire Chang, James Galske, Sumeet Kadian, and Andrew Shapiro for making us proud with your thoughtful words.

I’d like to close this week with a letter a patient took the time to write about Jon Gorman, application analyst in IT, edited for privacy 

I just wanted to send a note of appreciation for Jon G from the Epic MyChart team.

I had been dealing with an ongoing issue that nobody was able to resolve over several months. It was causing me quite a bit of stress and concern that the correction was not able to be made in MyChart and everyone I spoke to could not see the issue I was reporting and therefore were “unable” to help me. 

My issue was ultimately escalated to Jon G, who was able to identify the root cause of the problem and send me very clear instructions on how to fix from within my portal. It truly made me feel so much better to know the cause of the issue was a simple fix, rather than my account and health data being intertwined with someone else’s. 

I very much appreciate Jon’s support when nobody else was able to assist me, and I wanted to be sure that he is recognized appropriately for his efforts.

Thanks to Jon, we were able to convert a frustrating situation into an excellent patient experience. Kudos to Jon and all those whose work behind the scenes puts us in the position to deliver outstanding care and service!



And thank you, to everyone reading this, for all you do.

Andrew C. Agwunobi, MD, MBA

Chief Executive Officer

EVP for Health Affairs

UConn Health

Has solar over the parking areas been thought about? It would help our organization to improve energy usage, and the covered parking could aid snow removal, etc., for our facilities team.

Thank you for the suggestion, which I’ve shared with our facilities leaders. We have evaluated our campus for potential solar panel installations. Most of the main campus parking lots are narrow and surrounded by tall buildings and wooded areas, creating significant shading that would substantially reduce solar generation and limit the project's cost-effectiveness.

John Lombardi, director of facilities engineering and sustainability and chair of our sustainability working group, tells us that on the lower campus, Lot 3 presents a potential opportunity; however, planned reconstruction of the Medical Examiner Office building is expected to affect the parking lot layout and traffic flow. The Cell and Genome Sciences Building at 400 Farmington Road also appears to be a viable location for a solar array, and the Connecticut Green Bank is currently evaluating the site as part of a cost-benefit analysis.

John also reports, solar carports typically cost 20% to 60% more than rooftop solar installations due to the added expense of structural steel canopies, foundations, drainage systems, and engineering requirements. They also do not provide complete parking coverage, as access lanes must be maintained for firefighting apparatus, snow removal equipment, and other maintenance operations.

One other note regarding sustainability, we did recently sign a 20-year power purchase agreement for 6.175 megawatts worth of fuel cells to be placed on the hill next to Garage 1 by the Outpatient Pavilion. Once the fuel cells are operational, we estimate they will save us $40 million to $60 million in utility costs over the 20-year contract term. We hope to have this system up and running by sometime in 2028.

As you can see, we do have our eye on sustainability, and some exciting things are ahead. Thank you for your question.

Have something you want to ask Dr. Andy? Submit your question on The Hub.

Learn why our CT AHEC recently sent a delegation to D.C.

Read about our medical school’s relaunch of the Mohs Surgery Fellowship.

Our outpatient team is relaunching the ‘Do the Two’ patient safety initiative.

Note: Some linked content is only available on The Hub, for which you must be on 
the UConn Health network to access. 

Dr. Jason Schneider breaks down the myths and facts about GLP-1 meds.

Dr. Anthony Alessi shares his experience in the unique world of Western sports on the latest Healthy Rounds Podcast.

And it’s last call to respond to our 2026 employee engagement survey — Go to The Hub now for these and other announcements and features and stay up to date with the latest UConn Health news!