Friday, June 1, 2007
By Jeffery Kurz, staff

MERIDEN - A leadership shake-up at Hartford Hospital means Jeffrey Flaks will be leaving MidState Medical Center, at least temporarily.

Flaks, who has been MidState’s chief operating officer since 2004, will take that position at Hartford Hospital , MidState’s affiliate, on an interim basis at the end of June.

George Kyriacou, Hartford Hospital ’s vice president for network development, will temporarily replace Flaks as MidState’s chief operating officer. Kyriacou was a top executive at Veterans Memorial Medical Center when he took a new position at Hartford Hospital in 1994 to help develop the partnership between the two hospitals. He had also been a vice president at Meriden-Wallingford Hospital .

“I know him from the old days,” said Lucille A. Janatka, MidState’s president and chief executive, who was a vice president at Meriden-Wallingford Hospital in the 1980s.

“He’s a great guy, with great talent,” she said.

The resignation of Kevin Hannifan as chief operating officer was announced in a letter Thursday to Hartford Hospital staff from John Meehan, the hospital ’s president and chief executive. John Biancamano, Hartford Hospital ’s chief financial officer, had “decided to transition to another role,” said Meehan.

Meehan called the moves “the first significant changes in our executive management team in many years.” In his letter, Meehan emphasized “dramatic and fast evolving changes in our industry and our marketplace.”

Hospital senior leadership had started looking at ways to meet those challenges a year ago, he said.

The challenges mentioned by Meehan included the “increasingly restricted reimbursement levels for Medicaid and Medicare patients, who make up a disproportionate share of our patient load because of our commitment to being an inner city institution.”

Flaks will stay on as chief operating officer while a nationwide search is conducted for Hannifan’s replacement. Biancamano will stay on until his replacement is hired. There is no timetable for completing the search, which means Flaks’ interim position is indefinite.

Janatka called it a “wonderful opportunity” for Flaks. “I don’t know how long the search will take,” she said.  “If and when he returns, the position is here for him,” she said.