Community Health Center Acquires Connecticut Children’s Clinic In Hartford

Article originally published in the Hartford Courant

HARTFORD — Mark Masselli’s expanding Community Health Center network has acquired a primary-care health clinic on New Britain Avenue in Hartford from Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and will run the clinic in partnership with the hospital.

No layoffs are anticipated, and patients will continue to see their doctors at the clinic. They will now have access to a broader range of medical care, as well as dental and behavioral-health treatment, Jim Shmerling, president and CEO at Connecticut Children’s, said in a statement Monday.

“We plan to add to the staff — there are no dental or behavioral-health services there now,” Masselli said in an interview Monday. “In addition to the fine staff at the clinic, we will be adding services.”

He said Community Health Center is receiving $650,000 a year in federal funding to support the expansion.

Community Health Center is based in Middletown and also operates clinics in New Britain, Meriden, Clinton, Bristol, Danbury, Groton, New London, Norwalk, Stamford, Waterbury, and Enfield.

Masselli, who founded the health centers 44 years ago in Middletown, parlayed a $7 million federal grant, a $2.5 million state bond issue and private financing to open a 48,000-square-foot, $17 million headquarters and primary-care center at 675 Main St. in Middletown. The project was finished in 2012. The center also runs a string of school-based health clinics across the state.

“We’ve been at this a long time, and this is a great opportunity for us — to work with an institution of the quality of Connecticut Children’s,” Masselli said.

Shmerling said the partnership brings “significant new funding from the federal government to the children of Hartford.

“The care of our patients and their families will extend beyond primary medical care to include coordination of medical, dental and behavioral health services, all critical components of effective primary care,” Shmerling said.

Patients can continue to receive care at the 76 New Britain Ave. location, “but will now have access to a larger scope of primary care services. The physicians will continue to be employed by the Connecticut Children’s Specialty Group, which currently runs the Primary Care Center and no layoffs of any staff are anticipated,” Shmerling said in the statement.

Connecticut Children’s will continue its relationship with the Department of Pediatrics of the UConn School of Medicine.

“CHC has agreed to sustain the residency program and medical-student training in primary care at the current level with the same number of residents and students,” the statement says.