Inside Hartford HealthCare’s billion-dollar bet on consumer-centric care

HealthLeaders Media – Friday, July 10, 2026
By Jay Asser

Most health systems are trying to improve the patient experience without changing the hospital itself.

Hartford HealthCare president and CEO Jeff Flaks doesn’t think that approach is good enough.

While organizations have invested in digital tools and expanded outpatient care, Flaks believes many hospitals are still built around the needs of providers rather than the people they serve. That’s why his system is making a $1 billion investment to transform 867-bed Hartford Hospital, a project intended to create what Flaks sees as a more consumer-forward model for the hospital of the future.

“We have to become more consumer centric,” Flaks told HealthLeaders. “We have to move from a healthcare system that was historically designed over a century around physicians, around clinicians, around administrative bureaucracy also. And it has to be designed around the consumer.”

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