CEO Message: June 2021

Dear Colleagues:

I hope you are all doing well and enjoying summer. There has been a lot happening at NEMG.

On May 17, 2021, we celebrated the opening of YNHHS’ newest site – the Uncasville Medical Center at Mohegan Sun. Attendees’ spirits were high and the weather was perfect for our ribbon-cutting ceremony. The facility brings together primary, specialty and walk-in care to better coordinate our patients’ care and provide added convenience. A multitude of NEMG services are offered including endocrinology, family medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, and x-ray and lab. I am very proud of the team of physicians and operations leaders, led by Rick Coppola, director of New London regional practice operations, and Aimee Derry, vice president, business development, who brought this facility from an idea to reality during a historic pandemic. This is a tremendous accomplishment for NEMG and our health system. Take a video tour of the facility. For more information about the ribbon-cutting event, please refer to the article in this newsletter.

As you know, my last day at NEMG is June 30. I will be headed back to the Mayo Clinic where I will be president of Mayo Clinic Health System and I am pleased to share that Richard Goldstein, MD, vice president, chief medical officer, will serve as interim president and CEO. He will work closely alongside Peter Logue, chief operating officer, and the rest of the team pending a national search that will begin later in the year. We have accomplished so much in the last five years together. Our clinical team has grown by about 20% and we now stretch all the way from Rye Brook, NY to Westerly, RI. We have outperformed our clinical, operational and financial benchmarks, and I am exceptionally proud of the cultural transformation and leadership growth I have witnessed, thanks to all of you working together as family. We currently rank in the 94th percentile nationally for patient satisfaction. For the calendar year 2020, ConnectiCare and UnitedHealthcare reported that NEMG achieved some of the highest levels of quality scores in the country. With ConnectiCare we achieved 100% of the targeted measures needed to have shared savings, and UnitedHealthcare reported our score as 4.8 out of 5 stars. Our ACO quality measures are also impressive with most equal to or above those of the previous year.

I am grateful for your hard work, commitment to excellence, dedication to our patients and the community. Thank you for your trust in me, and the rest of the CEO team. I wish each of you the very best in the next phase of NEMG.

Sincerely, 

Prathibha Varkey, MBBS, MPH, MHPE, MBA President and Chief Executive Officer Northeast Medical Group