Chief experience officers are becoming more common at hospitals and health systems across the country as organizations accelerate efforts to meet the needs of their patients, employees and caregivers.
The CXO, or chief experience officer, is responsible for many aspects of the health system's culture, accountability and patient satisfaction. Many have backgrounds outside of healthcare, including experience in retail and other consumer industries.
Here are 25 hospital and health system CXOs to know.
Note: The people listed here are arranged in alphabetical order. Individuals or systems do not and cannot pay for inclusion on this list.
Contact Laura Dyrda at ldyrda@becekrshealthcare.com with questions or comments on this list.
Lisa Allen, PhD. Chief Patient Experience Officer of Johns Hopkins Medicine (Baltimore). Dr. Allen brings 25 years of experience to her role as Johns Hopkins Medicine's chief patient experience officer, a position that has involved launching patient-navigation apps, improving adoption of bedside electronic tablets and shaping care-plan strategy with input from patients and families. Previously, Dr. Allen served as system vice president for quality, patient experience and patient safety at Dallas-based Steward Health Care System, where she employed patient-centered care strategies to improve the 11-hospital system's Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems scores.
Adrienne Boissy, MD. Chief Patient Experience Officer of Cleveland Clinic. An early-career experience with a multiple sclerosis patient shaped how Dr. Boissy approaches her role as Cleveland Clinic's chief patient experience officer; rather than seeing medicine as the business of "fixing" people, she sees it as the business of being present. With this mindset, Dr. Boissy climbed up the ranks at Cleveland Clinic, going from staff neurologist to medical director of the Center of Excellence in Healthcare Communication. Today, Dr. Boissy oversees the Cleveland Clinic office of patient experience and its initiatives across the 5,895-bed system.
Jonathan Bothell, MSN, RN. Director of Office of the Patient Experience at the University of Iowa Health Care (Iowa City). Striving to combine quality improvement with the patient experience, Mr. Bothell began his nursing career in the neonatal intensive care unit at UI Hospitals & Clinics. He went on to work in the department of clinical quality, safety and performance improvement, managing the system's internal incident reporting system and serving as a quality and safety liaison for adult intensive care areas. Since becoming interim director of UI Health Care's Office of the Patient Experience in February 2017 — and permanent director months later — Mr. Bothell has been pivotal in bringing "Compassionate, Connected Care" training to various departments and units.
Shannon Connor Phillips, MD. Chief Patient Experience Officer of Intermountain Healthcare (Salt Lake City). As Intermountain's chief patient experience officer, Dr. Phillips is charged with supporting clinicians as they link safety and quality to the patient care journey. She joined Intermountain from Cleveland Clinic, where she served as the organization's first patient safety officer and later accepted roles as associate chief quality officer and physician lead in the office of clinical transformation. A pediatric hospitalist, Dr. Phillips has been involved with the National Quality Forum and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Nancy Corcoran-Davidoff. Chief Experience and Human Resource Officer at Hackensack (N.J.) Meridian Health. As Hackensack Meridian Health's chief experience and human resource officer, Ms. Corcoran-Davidoff is responsible for the satisfaction of patients, team members and physicians — no small task, given that the health system includes 13 hospitals and more than 200 other care facilities. A self-described advocate, collaborator and innovative thinker, Ms. Corcoran-Davidoff believes in supporting clinicians through change, engaging patients while they're in the hospital and making wellness a key focus for CXOs. In August 2019, Ms. Corcoran-Davidoff received the Women in Leadership Executive Impact Award from Linkage, a leadership consulting company.
Rick Evans. Senior Vice President and Chief Experience Officer of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital (New York City). Mr. Evans is committed to improving the patient and family care experience and strategically increasing patient satisfaction as NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital's senior vice president and chief experience officer, a position he assumed in October 2015. Previously, he spent four years as CEO of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and seven years overseeing patient-centered care, support services and volunteer services at NewYork-Presbyterian.
Sven Gierlinger. Vice President and Chief Experience Officer of Northwell Health (Great Neck, N.Y.). Mr. Gierlinger became vice president and chief experience officer in 2014 at what was then called North Shore-LIJ Health System, having served as Detroit-based Henry Ford Health System's vice president of hospitality and service culture. As Northwell's first chief experience officer, Mr. Gierlinger has incorporated more patient-generated health data into the health system's EMRs and forged a partnership with an analytics software provider to improve end-to-end patient experiences. Under his direction, Northwell launched a humanism-focused training program for its 16,000 nurses and educated over 1,300 attending physicians, residents and advanced care providers through a full-day communication course.
Seona Goerndt, Director of Patient Experience at MetroHealth (Cleveland). Tasked with improving the service experience for MetroHealth's roughly 300,000 annual patients, Ms. Goerndt serves as director of patient experience. She brings more 15-plus years of leadership experience to the Office of Patient Experience, which was established in 2013. Additionally, she serves as a member of the MetroHealth Care Partners governing board and co-chairs the ACO's engagement and experience committee.
Keith Gran. Chief Patient Experience Officer of University of Michigan Health System (Ann Arbor). Mr. Gran joined University of Michigan Health System in 2015 as value improvement officer, and his position was expanded in 2016 to encompass the full range of patient interactions under the title of chief patient experience officer. Under Mr. Gran's direction, the office of patient experience has compiled the system's first guidebook for adult inpatients and involved more than 1,000 patient and family advisers on committees, surveys and councils. Before joining UMHS, Mr. Gran served in executive roles at a number of health organizations, including the University of Miami (Fla.) Medical Group and the University of Southern California Care Medical Group in Los Angeles.
Alexander Greengold. Senior Vice President and Chief Consumer Experience Officer at Memorial Hermann (Houston). Mr. Greengold joined Memorial Hermann in September 2019, after spending time as vice president of customer experience, support and strategy for Dish Network. His background also includes time in leadership roles at AOL and Inverness Medical Innovations. In his current role, Mr. Greengold leads strategies to improve patient, family and caregiver experience.
Pam Guler. Vice President and Chief Experience Officer of AdventHealth (Altamonte Springs, Fla.). As vice president and chief experience officer for AdventHealth, Ms. Guler guides the organization's leadership teams to improve patient experience through best practices and collaborates with multiple departments on consumer strategy. In 2018, Ms. Guler's direction helped six AdventHealth hospitals gain the Outstanding Patient Experience Award from Healthgrades. With more than 25 years of experience in healthcare and other service industries, Ms. Guler serves as co-chair of the Beryl Institute Patient Experience Advisory Board and sits on the Press Ganey Institute for Innovation's founding executive council.
Kevin Gwin. Chief Patient Experience Officer of University of Missouri Health Care (Columbia). At the University of Missouri Health Care, Mr. Gwin is focused on incorporating data-driven initiatives, similar to how the academic medical center manages clinical quality and financial performance, into the patient experience. Mr. Gwin has been chief patient experience officer at University of Missouri Health Care for more than three years. Prior to that, he served as the vice president of patient experience at communications at Nashville, Tenn.-based Ardent Health.
Keri Kaiser. Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Experience Officer at Children's Health (Dallas). Throughout her career at Children's Health, Ms. Kaiser rebranded the organization into a "system," with Children's Medical Center Dallas being the flagship hospital. Prior to joining Children's Health in 2012, she served as the chief revenue officer of the AT&T Performing Arts Center. Ms. Kaiser is also a member of the Dallas Women's Foundation board and the Southern Methodist University Digital Accelerator Advisory Board.
Joan Kelly. Chief Experience Officer at Yale New Haven (Conn.) Health System. Ms. Kelly became chief experience officer at Yale New Haven Health System in December 2018 after spending four years as chief patient experience officer at NYU Langone Health. At NYU Langone, Ms. Kelly spearheaded all work related to patient satisfaction, advocacy, complaint and complement management, experience design, patient communication and education, volunteer services, pastoral care and hospitality services. Prior to joining the health system, she served as the head of consumer experience, well-being an innovation at Humana.
Susan Murphy, RN, MS. Chief Experience and Innovation Officer at UChicago Medicine. Ms. Murphy successfully managed the office of patient experience as executive director, earning her the spot as chief experience and innovation officer. As the chief experience and innovation officer, Ms. Murphy works with the clinical effectiveness analytics team to evaluate programs that can improve the patient experience and patient engagement. In 2018, she earned the Kate Granger Compassionate Care Award by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.
Julie Kennedy Oehlert, DNP, RN. Chief Experience Officer of Vidant Health (Greenville, N.C.). As the chief experience officer at Vidant Health, Dr. Kennedy spearheads all executive leadership and strategic oversight for the patient experience, team member experience, equity and inclusion and workplace safety. She has a unique background with a doctorate of nursing practice in health innovation and leadership from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Kennedy has held strategic and operational roles in acute care and outpatient settings.
Lyn Ketelsen, RN. Vice President and Chief Patient Experience Officer of HCA Healthcare (Nashville, Tenn.). The 166-hospital system appointed Ms. Ketelsen to serve as vice president and chief patient experience officer in February 2015. She joined HCA Healthcare after more than 12 years at Studer Group, an organization that helps healthcare providers improve outcomes. Ms. Ketelsen has been a registered nurse for more than 29 years, spending the first 17 years of her career at Genesis Health System in Davenport, Iowa.
Linda Lombardi, PhD. Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Experience Officer of NYC Health+Hospitals Bellevue (New York City). Dr. Lombardi has been a member of NYC Health + Hospitals for nearly 40 years, joining New York's largest public health system when it was known as NYC Health and Hospitals Corp. A leader in patient experience and patient advocacy, Dr. Lombardi earned the NYU School of Professional Studies award for teaching excellence. Dr. Lombardi earned her doctorate from the City University of New York Graduate School and University Center and has been working to create a learning environment that supports patient safety and care ever since.
Tom Malasto. Senior Vice President and Chief Patient Experience Officer of Community Health Network (Indianapolis). Community Health Network tapped Mr. Malasto to serve as its inaugural chief patient experience officer in December 2013. When Mr. Malasto joined Community Health Network in 2006, he was the CEO of the Indiana Heart Hospital, now known as the Community Heart and Vascular Hospital. Along with his work at the health system, Mr. Malasto is on the board of directors for the American Heart Association's Metropolitan Indianapolis division.
Susan Pappas. Division Director of UC San Francisco Health Experience. Throughout her tenure at UC San Francisco, Ms. Pappas helped the UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights and the Benioff Children's Hospital San Francisco score 93rd and 98th respectively in the Press Ganey national database in percentile ranking for the last three years. Prior to joining UCSF, Ms. Pappas served as the executive director of the office of patient experience at the University of Chicago Medical Center. She also has experience as the director of service excellence and language and cultural services at Phoenix-based Banner Health.
Manny Rodriguez. Chief Marketing, Experience and Customer Officer of UCHealth (Denver). As the chief marketing, experience and customer officer, Mr. Rodriguez is responsible for the brand, advertising, sponsorship and communications of the 12-hospital system, which employs 24,000 people and generates $5 billion in operating revenue. Mr. Rodriguez has established sponsorships with the Denver Broncos, Colorado Rockies, Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche and Colorado Mammoth. Prior to joining UCHealth, Mr. Rodriguez held marketing positions with Johnson & Johnson, Schering-Plough, Abbott Laboratories, Bristol-Myers Squib and Forest Laboratories.
Nicole Rossol. Chief Patient Experience Officer of Stony Brook (N.Y.) University Hospital. Ms. Rossol took on the role of chief patient experience officer of Stony Brook University Hospital in February 2019. She is responsible for the design and implementation of the hospital's strategy to drive organizationwide culture of patient- and family-centered care. She aims to instill a culture of patient engagement, ownership and awareness of performance metrics. Prior to joining Stony Brook, Ms. Rossol was the patient experience officer at NYU Winthrop Hospital in Mineola.
Thomas Savides, MD. Chief Experience Officer of UC San Diego Health. In his position, Dr. Savides has helped develop and lead a cultural transformation at UC San Diego Health. In addition to serving as the chief experience officer, Dr. Savides is the associate chief medical officer for staff affairs. With more than 175 publications, Dr. Savides has been a governing board member of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy and president of the San Diego Gastroenterology Society.
Vivian Sun. Assistant Vice President and System Chief Experience Officer at NYC Health + Hospitals. As the system chief experience officer, Ms. Sun is responsible for the patient experience and employee engagement health system's 11 acute care hospitals, five post-acute/long-term care facilities and Gotham Health. Over the past six years, she has received more than $2.8 million in funding to spearhead initiatives across NYC Health + Hospitals. Specifically, Ms. Sun has overseen an educational mission to support and train more than 40,000 employees.