Our Team

How we prioritize and organize ourselves to be a leader in quality and safety performance.

As a system, Hartford HealthCare is dedicated to high quality and safety performance with significant investments in leadership, infrastructure and resources to support quality and safety improvement efforts. Hartford HealthCare continues to transform and evolve into an integrated, coordinated care delivery system with effective ecosystems, dedicated resources and improved capabilities that enable us to deliver care more effectively, efficiently and at a higher quality.

Chief Clinical Officer

Ajay Kumar, MD

An experienced physician executive responsible for driving clinical transformation across the entire health system. With the ever important focus on providing the highest quality care at the most affordable cost, the Chief Clinical Officer engages health system psycicians and clinical teams to champion quality, ensure peak clinical performance and advance a culture of clinical excellence across the care continuum.

Vice President, Quality & Safety

Stephanie Calcasola, RN

Responsible for leading the development and strengthening of a comprehensive and unified program to execute on excellence in quality outcomes and patient safety. Leads processes to monitor, measure and assess patient care, strategize improvement of key quality performance indicators and implements support systems to achieve high quality, safe, cost effective healthcare.

Quality Leaders

Hartford Hospital

Aimee McDaniel-Laut
Regional Director, Quality & Safety

Avital Porat, MD
Medical Director, Quality

Central Region:

The Hospital of Central Connecticut and MidState Medical Center

Penny Charamut
Regional Director, Quality & Safety

Abbie Courtemanche, MD
Medical Director, Quality

East Region:

The William W. Backus Hospital and Windham Hospital

Katie Pollard
Regional Director, Quality & Safety

William Horgan, MD
Medical Director, Quality

Charlotte Hungerford Hospital

Kate Betancourt
Regional Director, Quality & Safety

Hemal Patel, MD
Medical Director, Quality

Just as each of our hospitals have dedicated team members focused on advancing quality and safety within their hospitals, so too do our Institutes, Medical Group, surgery centers, and all other entities that are a part of Hartford HealthCare. While the commitment to safe, high-quality care is shared by all who work at Hartford HealthCare, these team members prioritize quality improvement and lead the way in advancing the quality & safety mission of our organization.

Infection Prevention

Ulysses Wu, MD
Physician leader, Infectious Disease

Keith Grant, APRN
Senior System Director, Infection Prevention

Hartford HealthCare is proud of its dedicated team of highly-experienced infection prevention and infection control experts. Our interdisciplinary team of infection preventionists brings together individuals with expertise is different areas of healthcare to identify and solve for issues from all angles to prevent and minimize patient and employee risk. The infection prevention team at Hartford HealthCare is responsible for planning, monitoring, and evaluating processes and systems to prevent and control infections, especially those infections originating within the hospital. They develop appropriate infection control procedures and provide patient and staff education to promote and sustain a safe environment in which to work and receive care.

Quality Analytics

The department of Quality Analytics is responsible for the planning, operation and support of data analytics and visualization for quality & safety, clinical best practice and care redesign at Hartford HealthCare. The team partners with leaders across the organization to collect, analyze and visualize data to inform decisions that drive healthcare quality, safety improvement and care efficiency forward.