New episode of Changes: Hartford HealthCare CEO Jeffrey Flaks

Jeffrey Flaks says Hartford HealthCare’s goal is to provide more personalized care and to help patients navigate the system more easily.

And he says AI is a critical part in reaching its goal of improving access.

Flaks, the president and CEO of Hartford HealthCare, talks about the system’s ambitions and its use of AI in the latest episode of Changes, a new video series from Chief Healthcare Executive®.

Flaks leads a system with eight acute care hospitals, 500 healthcare sites and more than $7 billion in revenue. In a 30-minute conversation, Flaks discussed AI, the growth of Hartford HealthCare in recent years and the system’s efforts to make it easier for people to get the care that they need.

The entire conversation is worth watching. Here are a few excerpts about the system’s use of AI, including a new tool dubbed “PatientGPT” that Flaks calls “a game changer.” The new tool is based in electronic health records and can help patients get virtual appointments around the clock or schedule visits at brick-and-mortar sites.

Q: Hartford HealthCare has just teamed with K Health to develop a new tool involving AI: PatientGPT. Talk about that AI health tool, and what you hope it's going to do.

A: “We're embracing AI. We embrace it on so many levels. It's ubiquitous, in so many ways, right? It's going across so many domains within Hartford HealthCare. But really what we're also seeing today is how it's impacting the consumer, impacting the patient. And this example that you reference, we just launched with K Health, the ChatGPT function, which is really incredible.

“And it's effectively an AI agent that is embedded within our electronic health record. So it has our patients all of their history, all of their data, all of their information, all of their provider notes and so forth, and images and lab results embedded, so that when patients reach out 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to have this kind of consultation, to get information from this AI-related service that we've partnered with K health on, it's amazing. And when a patient,through that process determines that they need a visit, our capabilities now through this product allow 24 hours a day, seven days a week, immediate transition into that virtual visit. And then should that virtual visit require a bricks-and-mortar visit, that is also coordinated through this process.

“So this is about navigation. It's about personalized care and personalized data and information guiding that care, and it's about access and empowering consumers and giving them the opportunity at any point in time to get and seek information, to get and seek care, and to have it very tightly coordinated. So this is a game-changer.”

Q: Navigation is something a lot of healthcare leaders are focusing on. So this can obviously help patients maybe get at least a virtual visit if they need it. This obviously can help people get service they need, but is it also aimed at maybe reducing the unnecessary emergency department visit? Is that part of it as well?

A: “Unquestionably. We embedded with K Health, HHC 24/7, one year ago, this month, April. So we built it in 2025. We've seen over 50,000 people in this period of time. We're seeing 250 to 300 people a day. And it's amazing because it's tightly coordinated. It's embedded, again, in our EHR. It works in collaboration, from a navigation standpoint, with their bricks-and-mortar providers. Some people are electing to have full-time virtual primary care support on these platforms, because it eliminates so many of the barriers to care, and it accelerates care. And we've seen solutions.

“So just a few examples. You know, stay-at-home parents, right, who can't get into the office because they have their children with them and don't have child care. Well, now they can get care at any point in time through our program. People who have chronic disease and have to frequently go in, to routine visits within their offices, no longer have to do that, and they could do that far less frequently because they do it now through this platform. Our rural communities, our urban communities, right where there's less access, in some instances, to primary care, they now can get primary care, real time.

So you know, the implications of this and the advantages of it are so extensive, and it keeps getting, you know, more advanced as time goes forward. We're applying it across different specialties.

“So this is all about how to make healthcare more accessible to our consumers, how to make care more affordable, how to make it more equitable in terms of availability to everybody under all circumstances, and improve the structure and organization and quality of the care. So it's happening, and that's why I'm so excited about this moment and what's happening.”

See our previous discussions in our video series on the rapid changes in the healthcare industry. Reminder: We have an audio version of Changes made for listening on the go. Get it wherever you get your podcasts.

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