1) INTENSIVE CARE UNIT APPLICATION

On October 10, 2023, the Connecticut Office of Health Strategy (OHS) approved Nuvance’s Certificate of Need (CON) application to terminate the ICU and replace it with a PCU. While this is not what we worked for, OHS did create several stipulations that Nuvance must follow, which is consistent with what we want for those in our community who present to the hospital requiring critical care medicine. OHS‘s Agreed Settlement includes nineteen conditions of which the following five require Nuvance to maintain the current level of care, hopefully protecting our critically ill community members from unnecessary transfers to other hospitals: 

1. Nuvance “will continue to provide, consistent with its best practices, and will not reduce, the acuity of critical care services."

2. Nuvance “shall maintain staff at the level currently existing in the designated ICU, in the resulting PCU and shall report such staffing levels to OHS every six months for a period of three years..."

3. Nuvance “shall maintain, update and/or improve the current level of critical care equipment as necessary to maintain the population and acuity of critical care services currently offered."

4. Nuvance “shall provide OHS with a case mix index for the current ICU unit for Fiscal Years 2019 through 2023 and shall continue to update such case index to OHS every six months for three years."

5. "Nuvance shall annually report to OHS the number of patients transferred from the PCU to another hospital, by month, including the reason for transfer, for a three year period...”

These OHS requirements demonstrate that although the Nuvance application was approved, the same level of critical care medicine that has been provided to Sharon Hospital ICU patients since 2019 may not change, but will be provided in the setting of a PCU instead. We hope that OHS’s intention to protect vital services for critically ill patients in our service area will be followed.