John Dempsey Hospital seeks OK to reopen 3 operating rooms

Hartford Business Journal – Thursday, March 27, 2025
By David Krechevsky

State health regulators have told UConn’s John Dempsey Hospital in Farmington it will need to file a Certificate of Need (CON) application if it wants to reopen three shuttered operating rooms.

On Feb. 25, the hospital filed a CON determination form with the state Office of Health Strategy (OHS), with the hospital stating that it does not believe a CON is required to reopen three “decommissioned” operating rooms.

The ORs were shuttered when UConn Health opened its new, $318 million University Tower in May 2016. The project included relocating operating rooms to the new tower, “leaving behind operating rooms that were decommissioned,” the filing states.

John Dempsey Hospital’s application proposes remodeling and reopening three of the “old operating rooms that remain and are unused.” The hospital estimates the cost of the project at $11 million and states it could be completed in steps, with the final OR ready for use in early 2028.

Reopening the three ORs would bring the hospital’s total to 22. John Dempsey currently has 18 licensed operating rooms, including 12 inpatient and six outpatient ORs. A 13th inpatient OR is scheduled to open later this year.

Hospital officials said the OR scheduled to open this year is the only addition to its operating room capacity in the past 10 years. It notes that it could have added more under a state law that allows it to add one OR every three years.

“It’s the position of UConn Health (UCH) that by the time the old ORs can be recommissioned (early 2028) no CON would be needed, but UCH would be at its OR addition cap (without a CON) until 2031,” the filing states.

It also notes that when the new university tower opened, the hospital staff included 59 physicians “for whom performing surgery (using ORs) is a primary duty.” At the end of 2024, that number had grown to 79.

“That growth in faculty, cases and demand for operating room time is not expected to slow,” the hospital said, adding that it expects to add 10 to 12 more surgeons in the next 36 months.

“This alone indicates the need for 2-4 additional physical operating rooms,” it said.

In a letter dated Wednesday responding to John Dempsey Hospital’s filing, OHS Commissioner Deidre S. Gifford states that, based on state law, the proposal to add three operating rooms exceeds the number of additions that can be added without a CON.

Based on that, “OHS concludes that a CON is required for the (p)roposal,” Gifford states.

The application by John Dempsey Hospital to add ORs follows a settlement reached in February with OHS to allow the hospital to add 23 medical surgical beds.

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