Dr. Andrew Agwunobi has returned to UConn Health in a big way, after leaving his role at the helm of the healthcare system in early 2022 for a stint as an executive at health insurer Humana.
He found the work at Humana interesting, but his commute to Boston via Amtrak was difficult. Also, he missed UConn Health, where he had worked since 2018.
So, when his old job opened back up, he applied. After an extensive national search, Agwunobi last summer was selected to lead UConn Health for a second time.
UConn Health includes a network of physician offices and John Dempsey Hospital in Farmington, along with UConn’s biomedical research department and medical and dental schools.
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Since returning, Agwunobi has embarked on an ambitious plan to move UConn Health — a public entity with 6,104 employees — toward a model that is less dependent on state funding.
Agwunobi told the Hartford Business Journal that the shift — driven, in part, by a need to stem UConn Health’s longstanding deficits — could involve a number of public-private partnerships to help generate more revenue and reduce costs.
Despite the challenges, Agwunobi said UConn Health’s financial performance is improving, driven by strong growth in patient revenue, which totaled $957.5 million in fiscal 2024, nearly double what the health system generated in 2020 ($511 million).
Agwunobi is a pediatrician by trade who earned an MBA from Stanford Business School, and served as interim president of the University of Connecticut.