Cynthia Roy, for the past 20 years, has served as President and CEO in hospice and palliative care, a service for patients diagnosed with a life-limiting illness of six months or less. She has been in that leadership position with Regional Hospice in Danbury, Connecticut, which she joined in 2007 as President and CEO. Cynthia has grown the once small organization into an industry leader, serving terminal patients of all ages.

Over a decade ago, Cynthia began the most challenging and rewarding phase of her career, assisting with the reinvention of hospice regulations in Connecticut.  Changes she fought for are outlined below:

…Require a hospice residence to provide a home-like atmosphere for patients for an appropriate amount of time.
…Cooperate with the Department of Public Health Commissioner to develop licensure and operational standards.
…Implement a new category for inpatient hospital facilities called “hospice facility.”
…Create and sanction new facilities under regulations based on Medicare’s minimum regulatory requirements for inpatient hospital facilities (42 CFR § 418. 110). 
…Update specified technical changes.

They were finally made law by Governor Dannel Malloy and implemented in 2012.

In 2013, Ms. Roy was appointed to the Palliative Care Advisory Council by the Connecticut Speaker of the House.

In 2015, her dream of building a specialized 36,000-square-foot, residential style facility, dedicated to the comfort and dignity of patients and their families, came to fruition. The Regional Hospice’s Center for Comfort Care and Healing was the first and only not-for-profit, all-private suite hospice in Connecticut. Over the past decade, Regional Hospice has grown from that small organization to an $18 million corporation.

As Cynthia says, “When I embarked on this path, I had no idea how much I would learn from our collective experience. With so many lessons learned along the way from patients and their families, colleagues and the public, and so much more to come, we continue to celebrate our operation and forge into the future knowing that at the heart of what we do begins with the vision of excellence in quality and patient care.” www.regionalhospicect.org

Cynthia completed her clinical training at St. Vincent’s Psychiatric Hospital, Columbia University. While at Columbia, she also worked with the United Nations NGO, International Committee on Aging and with the New York City Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association and Buoniconti Fund, the fundraising arm of the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis.