CT regulator OKs John Dempsey Hospital’s plan to add 23 beds

Hartford Business Journal – Thursday, February 6, 2025
By David Krechevsky 

About a year after filing its application, UConn’s John Dempsey Hospital in Farmington has reached a settlement with state regulators to allow the hospital to add 23 medical surgical beds.

In a settlement agreement dated Feb. 5, the state Office of Health Strategy states that it has agreed to approve the additional beds, subject to certain conditions.

The hospital filed a Certificate of Need (CON) application last year on Feb. 4, seeking approval to add the beds, citing increased demand.

Dr. Bruce Liang, the hospital’s interim CEO at the time, said the demand for medical surgical beds had “grown steadily over the last several years,” as more people seek to be treated in the hospital’s emergency department.

John Dempsey has 234 licensed and staffed beds overall, including 175 adult medical surgical beds. Of those beds, 28 are critical care beds, 20 are maternal health beds, 10 are infant bassinets, 19 are psychiatric beds and 10 are set aside for the state Department of Correction locked unit.

The total cost of adding the 23 licensed and staffed beds would be $1.1 million, according to the application.

To add the beds, John Dempsey would create a new medical surgical floor in existing space in its Connecticut Tower. That space was previously used for that purpose before the hospital opened its University Tower in 2016.

The conditions set in the settlement agreement include requiring John Dempsey to “use best efforts” to “engage other providers in the primary service area to expand licensed bed capacity, and must report to OHS quarterly on such efforts.” If another provider agrees to expand its bed capacity, the 23 beds at John Dempsey would be reduced.

If John Dempsey Hospital is unable to reach an agreement with another provider to expand their bed capacity within three years of the date of the settlement, then the CON for the 23 additional beds “shall expire” and will be reduced from the licensed bed capacity, unless the hospital can “demonstrate a need for such licensed beds under the state’s inpatient bed need methodology.”

A report released by Gov. Ned Lamont in May last year said the state should explore selling John Dempsey Hospital, linking it in partnership with a private acute care network, and other options to keep the University of Connecticut Health Center afloat financially.

The analysis by Cain Brothers, an investment banking firm that specializes in health care, also concluded that the home to UConn’s medical and dental schools and John Dempsey Hospital is too small to compete in the current market while struggling with fringe benefit and wage costs — which are driven largely by state government and not by Connecticut’s flagship university.

But consultants also wrote that while it is one of the nation’s smallest academic medical centers, “it is a critical source of the state’s future health care professionals and is an essential provider of healthcare and dental services,” particularly to low-income patients in the greater Hartford area.

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