Connecticut State Department of Public Health

The Federal Government has reopened COVIDtests.gov. Every household can order four over-the-counter COVID-19 tests for free. These tests are intended for use throughout the 2024 holiday season to detect currently circulating COVID-19 variants. Please visit COVIDtests.gov for your free test.

Health Systems Planning

On July 1, 2018, the Office of Health Care Access (OHCA) was consolidated within the Office of Health Strategy as the Health Systems Planning Unit to continue and enhance health systems planning. The HSP Unit will continue to have statutory authority to gather and analyze specified hospital financial, billing and discharge data such as hospital expenses and revenues, uncompensated care volumes, hospital utilization, demographic, clinical, charge, payer and provider statistics.

The unit’s major functions are to:

  • Administer the certificate of need (CON) program to promote appropriate development of health facilities and services that addresses a public need. The CON program strives to ensure accessibility for needed services while limiting duplication or excess capacity of facilities and services;
  • Prepare the Statewide Health Care Facilities and Services Plan;
  • Collect and analyze health care data and issue reports including the biennial utilization study; and
  • Review hospital financial information and issue reports including an annual acute care hospital financial stability report. 

For more information, please visit https://portal.ct.gov/OHS/Services/Health-Systems-Planning