Norwich — The new Hartford Healthcare president for the William W. Backus and Windham hospitals officially arrived on the job during a hectic week for Backus.

The hospital was the last facility in the Hartford HealthCare network to start using a new electronic record-keeping software called Epic, and the rollout of the software began last week the same time Donna Handley started her job as president of the East Region of the healthcare network.

Nurses and doctors were learning to use the new system, assisted by workers with an outside contractor wearing red vests that identified them as Epic experts, standing by to answer questions last week.

“It was an epic week,” Handley joked in an interview last week.

October 1 was also the first day that Backus and all other Hartford HealthCare facilities were considered “out-of-network” for patients covered by Anthem Blue Cross-Blue Shield after the two companies failed to agree to a new contract by the time the previous contract expired the night before.

By Friday, Handley had not yet unpacked the artwork and boxes in her office at Backus after a week of tightly scheduled board meetings, tours of the hospital, breakfasts with staff members and a daily commute back to her home in East Hartford.

“It’s been a long six days,” she said at the end of the week.

Previously the vice president at Hartford HealthCare’s Cancer Institute, Handley began her career as a nurse specializing in thoracic surgical oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital.

She was later the Vice President of Cancer Services at St. John Health in Detroit, and took over Hartford HealthCare’s cancer institute in 2009.

She takes over Backus and Windham hospitals from Bimal Patel, who was announced as the president of the two hospitals in December 2015 and is now the president of Hartford Hospital.

Conscious of the public perception that Backus’ 2013 affiliation with Hartford Healthcare disconnected what was once a “community hospital” from its local roots, Handley used the word “community” in almost every sentence during an interview Friday.

“I do think.based on my conversations with the medical staff, the fear that the system is going to take away their identity is actually contrary to the goal and the mission of Hartford HealthCare,” Handley said.

“I understand there’s a perception, but I’ll be honest…it’s my job to come in and prove that’s not the case,” she added. “The system is people and patients and buildings. So there’s no ‘them,’ it’s really us.”

The 2013 affiliation led to some initial layoffs, but has been financially beneficial for Backus: the hospital ended fiscal year 2016 with a net revenue of $305.8 million, a positive operating margin of 11.9 percent of revenues over expenses, which was down slightly from the 13.9 percent margin in fiscal 2015.

In the past several years, Backus has expanded into the southeastern Connecticut shoreline with more primary care offices and an ambulatory surgery center.

Handley said Backus’ relationships with places like the Memorial Sloane Kettering cancer center — with which she brokered a partnership as the vice president of Hartford HealthCare’s cancer institute — are giving patients access to more resources in Norwich.

“At smaller community hospitals it’s impossible to attract those kinds of physicians,” she said “It’s being a part a system and having a hospital like Hartford Hospital that’s centrally located — we can attract those physicians and then provide that access to our patients.”

Plans for adding services at Backus such as a full-time neurologist, surgical subspecialties, technology for minimally invasive spine surgery and a program for identifying patients with a high risk for breast cancer, she said, are all possible because of Backus’ membership in Hartford Healthcare. 

“It’s true, there’s that sense that it’s not the same that it used to be,” Handley said. “But there are also advantages that this community wouldn’t have.”