Becker's Healthcare is thrilled to recognize 54+ strong chief experience officers who are serving hospitals and health systems across the nation.
CXOs oversee the entire lifespan of the patient and provider journey. These detail-oriented leaders ensure that all interactions with their hospitals and health systems feel safe, high-quality, convenient and intuitive. The CXOs honored are innovative thinkers, strategic planners, brand storytellers, and fierce advocates for their patients and team members.
Note: Becker's Healthcare developed this list based on nominations and editorial research. Leaders do not pay and cannot pay for inclusion on this list. This list is not exhaustive, nor is it an endorsement of the leaders or organizations mentioned. We extend a special thank you to Rhoda Weiss for her contributions to this list. Leaders are presented in alphabetical order.
For questions and comments on this list, contact Anna Falvey at afalvey@beckershealthcare.com.
Tanya Andreadis. Vice President of Patient Engagement and Chief Marketing Officer at Penn Medicine (Philadelphia). At Penn Medicine, an $11 billion organization ranking among the top 5% of academic medical centers in research grants, Ms. Andreadis leads large, transformational projects to improve the patient experience and increase access to care through advanced communication channels. She is co-leading a multimillion dollar, multiyear project that will completely transform the patient call centers, enable online scheduling, improve digital communications at all stages of the patient journey and communicate with patients according to their preferences. She has led the evaluation of patient education solutions and is involved in ensuring patients receive the right information at the right time in their journey. As former chief marketing officer at Los Angeles-based UCLA Health, Ms. Andreadis helped shape the patient experience by driving the strategy to connect the many patient touch points, from searching for care to post-care interactions. She was responsible for the implementation of marketing automation and AI-driven tech that brought personalized communications to scale in order to disseminate pertinent and timely information throughout the pandemic.
Jennifer "Jasmine" E. Arfaa, PhD. Vice President of Patient Experience at University of Maryland Medical Center (Baltimore). Dr. Arfaa is University of Maryland Medical Center's vice president of patient experience. Her role entails leading the office of patient and family experience, volunteer services, patient advocacy, interpreting services, integrative care, guest services and patient transportation. She works closely with clinical and nonclinical colleagues to assess and improve the patient journey. Dr. Arfaa has more than 23 years of professional experience designing, implementing and directing patient, family, employee and volunteer experiences at various academic medical centers. Most recently, she served as chief experience officer at UC Health in Cincinnati. There, she integrated service excellence into the recruitment, orientation, incentives and culture of the entire healthcare system. She is currently an active member of the American College of Healthcare Executives and its Maryland Chapter, along with the The Beryl Institute, the American Association of University Women and the American Heart Association Maryland Chapter.
Steve Basilotto. Chief Experience Officer of Froedtert Theda Care Health (Milwaukee). Mr. Basilotto has been the chief experience officer at Froedtert Theda Care Health since 2018. He is responsible for finding and executing leading edge opportunities to provide customers, patients and staff with positive experiences. Mr. Basilotto has direct-to-customer experience in financial services, health insurance, technology and health provision services.
Vishal Bhalla. Chief Experience Officer for Advocate Health (Charlotte, N.C.). Mr. Bhalla serves as the CXO for Advocate Health. The system employs almost 155,000 team members across 68 hospitals and more than 1,000 care locations, and also features a graduate medical education program with over 2,000 residents and fellows across more than 200 programs. In his role, Mr. Bhalla unifies these two distinct functions under a shared culture of belonging, trust, innovation and excellence. He applies a multipronged, data-centric, systemic approach to burnout reduction and wellbeing improvement. Mr. Bhalla conducts an annual survey, participates in rounding and heads a leadership training program to create an environment of wellbeing for teammates. Prior to assuming his current role, he was Atrium Health's first CXO, leading stakeholder collaboration and driving patient, provider, teammate and volunteer experience.
Steve Bird, MD. Clinician Experience Officer at UMass Memorial Healthcare (Worcester, Mass.). Mr. Bird has held his position with UMass Memorial Healthcare since 2019 and has been a professor of emergency medicine with UMass Chan Medical School for 19 years. He previously served as director of the school's emergency medicine residency and the vice chair of education.
Jennifer F. Bollinger. Senior Vice President and Chief Brand and Consumer Officer at Sutter Health (Sacramento, Calif.). Ms. Bollinger leads the marketing, communications, patient experience, consumer strategy and access to care teams for Sutter Health, aiming to elevate the health system's brand and increase consumer engagement through the delivery of a more connected patient experience. She and her team led the development of a refreshed health system brand and made significant digital enhancements. In just her first year, Sutter made comprehensive upgrades to its EHR, patient-facing online portal, digital waitlist and "fast pass", reducing the average time programs took to connect patients to care by 19 days. In addition, there has already been a 94% reduction in in-basket messages related to appointment cancellation requests. Prior to joining Sutter, Ms. Bollinger was senior vice president and chief consumer officer at New Orleans-based Ochsner Health. She is an active participant in the American College of Healthcare Executives and Leadership Institute and serves as an advisor to the Young Entrepreneurs Organization’s southeast regional chapter.
Eddie Borrego. Senior Vice President, Chief Experience Officer and CEO at Jackson West Medical Center (Miami). Mr. Borrego is responsible for enhancing the overall patient experience for all of Jackson West Medical Center. He experiments with new ideas and solutions that drive innovation and address the complex challenges healthcare faces today. Prior to the center’s opening in August 2021, Mr. Borrego was responsible for overseeing the planning, design, execution and successful opening of the $280 million campus. He is currently focused on leading the operations, care delivery and growth of Jackson West, which is home to a 100-bed hospital, a diagnostic center, outpatient clinics, adult and pediatric emergency rooms, and an ambulatory medical pavilion. As CXO, he promotes a patient-centric approach, emphasizing communication, empathy and personalized care. Previously, he served as COO at Jackson South Medical Center in Kendall, Fla. He also formerly worked as chief of staff for the Miami-Dade County commissioner.
Cynthia Burger. Vice President and Chief Experience Officer of Dayton (Ohio) Children's Hospital. Ms. Burger has been the vice president and chief experience officer at Dayton Children’s Hospital since 2018. Her responsibilities include overseeing operations, patient experience and human resources for the system, which has more than 3,200 employees. Ms. Burger previously served as the vice president of patient and family experience at the hospital from 2014-18.
Carol Campbell. Senior Vice President and Chief Experience Officer for Ascension (St. Louis). Ms. Campbell brings more than 25 years of experience in consumer experience to her role at Ascension, which she assumed in January 2022 to help ensure a consistent, exceptional experience for the patients and communities served by the health system. The delivery of excellent care is a key part of the system's strategic plan. Ms. Campbell previously served as the managing director of consumer insight and global customer experience for Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines since 2018. Before that, she spent 20 years with the Walt Disney Co., most recently as director of cast and guest experience strategy at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. She has also been a core champion in the development of the first master’s degree program for customer experience in North America.
Jessica Castle. Chief Experience and Marketing Officer of Phoebe Putney Health System (Albany, Ga.). Ms. Castle joined Phoebe Putney Health System in 2014, first as vice president of marketing, public relations and business development. In her current role, she and her team elevate patient experience systemwide by implementing new programs to promote positive patient experiences throughout the care continuum. She brings over two decades of experience in healthcare to her role, leveraging a deep understanding of patient experience and brand storytelling. Prior to joining Phoebe Putney, she worked as the senior director of marketing for Atlanta-based Piedmont Healthcare.
Lindsay Caulfield. Chief Marketing and Experience Officer of Grady Health (Atlanta). Ms. Caulfield came to Grady Health in 2012. She previously worked at public relations agency Cohn & Wolfe as executive vice president. In her career, she has built and led integrated marketing communications programs, public relations initiatives and strategic planning for Fortune 500 companies.
Danita Cohen. Chief Experience Officer of University Medical Center of Southern Nevada (Las Vegas). Ms. Cohen has been the chief experience officer at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada since 2008. She helps to uphold the expectation that every patient is treated with compassion, accountability, respect and integrity. Ms. Cohen empowers those at the bedside to provide the best care possible to patients.
Nick Colovos, MD. Chief Experience Officer of BayCare Medical Group (Tampa, Fla.). Mr. Colovos has more than 20 years of experience as a physician and is board-certified in emergency medicine. He previously was chief quality officer at Emory Physician Group Practices. He became a faculty member of Emory University School of Medicine in 2014.
Mary Cramer. Executive Director of Organizational Effectiveness and Chief Experience Officer of Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston). Ms. Cramer is executive director of organizational effectiveness and CXO for MGH and the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization. She oversees internal consultants who focus on service improvement and organizational performance. Her role entails strategic planning, programmatic oversight of patient experience, process improvement, program design, project prioritization and execution, staff recruitment and development, and organizationwide training and mentoring. She previously was director of performance excellence at New York City-based NewYork- Presbyterian Hospital.
Linh Dang. Chief Experience Officer of Cook County Health (Chicago). Ms. Dang is the chief experience officer at Cook County Health. She creates new initiatives aimed at enhancing both the patient and employees experience at the company. Ms. Dang is also responsible for ensuring that all patients and staff have a positive experience.
Tanesha Daniels. Chief Experience Officer of The Loretto Hospital (Chicago). Ms. Daniels has been the chief experience officer at The Loretto Hospital since 2013. In her role, she is responsible for advancing the hospital’s core values and mission of providing patient-centered care. Ms. Daniels also has an important role in improving hospital culture and interactions between the hospital and patients, families and visitors.
Seanna-Kaye Denham, PhD. Chief Experience Officer of NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County (New York City). Dr. Denham has been at NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County since the start of her career. Now as its chief experience officer, Dr. Denham is its foremost thought-leader and strategist on person-centered approaches to optimizing human relationships in the healthcare setting. She and her team help their organization practice inclusive employee engagement through a robust executive leadership rounds program, the Care Experience Council and peer-led recognition programs. She led the organization to improve its approaches to patient and employee experience.
Lisa Drumbore. Vice President of Marketing Communication and Chief Experience Officer of Saint Peter's Healthcare System (New Brunswick, N.J.). Ms. Drumbore joined St. Peter's Healthcare in 2001 as director of service excellence, a role in which she served 15 years. She was appointed vice president and chief experience officer of the system in May 2016.
Alan Dubovsky. Vice President of Patient Experience and Chief Patient Experience Officer at Cedars-Sinai (Los Angeles). Mr. Dubovsky is responsible for leading the office of patient experience for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and hospital. In his role, he oversees patient experience, patient advocacy, interpreter services and lobby services. Mr. Dubovsky was brought to Cedars-Sinai to create the patient experience program, design it to drive engagement with staff and physicians, demonstrate positive results in patient experience surveys, and build a team of professionals that meet and exceed all benchmarks. He formed and now leads the West Coast Patient Experience Collaborative, which leads medical centers and systems to push the patient experience movement forward. He has also mentored several patient experience startups, helping to share his insights with the industry.
Rick Evans. Senior Vice President and Chief Experience Officer of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital (New York City). Mr. Evans has been the senior vice president and chief experience hospital at the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital since 2015. He is skilled in executive and healthcare management, hospital operations and patient experience. Mr. Evans is responsible for overseeing the hospital’s efforts to enhance patient experience and developing strategies to increase satisfaction.
Michael Frumovitz, MD. Chief Patient Experience Officer at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston). Dr. Frumovitz plays a pivotal role in the patient journey at MD Anderson, spearheading initiatives dedicated to providing human-centered, value-driven care. In 2017, Dr. Frumovitz helped to establish the patient experience division at the cancer center. He also implemented a scoring system to create ratings for clinicians. Currently, Dr. Frumovitz leads efforts to ensure patients, their families and staff members feel heard, valued and empowered throughout their interactions with the institution. His focus areas include patient advocacy, grievances, patient satisfaction, spiritual care and education, food and nutrition services, patient education, social work and language assistance. Dr. Frumovitz's accomplishments at the cancer center include the implementation of a groundbreaking nurse navigation program, as well as the launch of a clinical support call center called askMDAnderson, where he served as medical director until recently. He is also a practicing oncologist and a professor of gynecologic oncology and reproductive medicine.
Heather Geisler. Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing, Communications and Experience Officer of Henry Ford Health System (Detroit). Ms. Geisler was appointed to her current position in 2020. She provides brand strategy and consumer experience leadership. Ms. Geisler has previously served at SS+K, a New York City marketing and advertising agency, where she led efforts in support of initiatives by former first lady Michelle Obama. She was named among Hospitality Management magazine's "30 Most Influential Women in Hospitality" in 2018.
Donna Geiss. Patient Experience Officer for NYC Health+Hospitals/Jacobi (New York City). Ms. Geiss has been handling patient experience at NYC Health+Hospitals/Jacobi since 2015. She has skills in management, research and leadership. Before her current role, Ms. Geiss was the associate director of nursing at the hospital from 2007-15.
Sven Gierlinger. Chief Experience Officer for Northwell Health (New Hyde Park N.Y.). Mr. Gierlinger is tasked with building an engaging, innovative and collaborative culture within Northwell Health. His work is key to driving organizational growth and customer loyalty through the customer experience. One of Mr. Gierlinger's most creative initiatives involved a reinvention of the hospital's approach to food service. He recruited a culinary changemaker, hired multiple top-tier chefs and upgraded the hospital kitchen facilities to improve the perception, quality and taste of hospital food at Northwell. These efforts resulted in a systemwide food quality average in the 80th percentile, according to patient scores. Outside-the-box thinking from Mr. Gierlinger also led the system to embrace new technologies like AI, redesign its hospital gowns, and rethink the sights and sounds of the hospital business. In his current role, Mr. Gierlinger draws from his prior experiences at Detroit-based Henry Ford Health System and in the luxury hotel business.
Alexander Greengold. Senior Vice President and Chief Consumer Experience Officer at Memorial Hermann Health System (Houston). Mr. Greengold is responsible for leading the development and execution of strategies that enhance patient experiences across Memorial Hermann Health System. He creates streamlined and intuitive care experiences that prioritize personalization and ease of access, with a focus on driving patient engagement and loyalty. He oversees a consumer experience team that includes specialists in analytics, strategic implementation, design engineering and patient education. The team gathers and analyzes consumer feedback to inform improvements in healthcare, operating under the idea that every team member in the system, regardless of role, is important and contributes to the consumer experience. Mr. Greengold has a background in customer experience both in and outside of healthcare. He has launched several major initiatives at Memorial Hermann, including fully rebranding culture and service, elevating patient satisfaction scores, achieving a 9.8/10 user experience rating, enabling 290 new operating and procedure rooms, transforming digital patient intake, improving patient and caregiver communications, and launching AI-powered predictive experience insights.
Terry Hudson-Jinks, DNP, MSN, RN. Chief Experience Officer and Chief Nursing Officer at Tufts Medical Center (Boston). Ms. Hudson-Jinks leads the strategy to ensure a seamless, frictionless patient- and family-centered care experience throughout the Tufts Medical Center continuum. She leverages her background as a registered nurse to integrate technology into the community, ensuring a relationship of trust is created and fostered for each member of the community. She is passionate about recognizing all staff members' collective responsibility and empowerment in shaping the patient experience. She encourages individuals in every department to contribute their ideas and provides ample resources to help bring their concepts to fruition, ensuring that every Tufts Medical Center community member has a stake in enhancing patient care. To this end, Ms. Hudson-Jinks has created a Patient Experience Council with a triad leadership model, which encourages the ideas and innovation of physicians, nurse leadership and administrative leads in numerous critical areas of the medical center. This model has resulted in consistent improvements, with results in the top decile performance.
Melanie Husk. Executive Vice President and Chief Experience Officer for Baptist Health (Jacksonville, Fla.). Ms. Husk has been serving Baptist Health for 18 years, leading efforts to bring a more consumer-oriented focus to care delivery across the system. Ultimately, she is working to implement an omnichannel vision for patient access and engagement via the adoption of digital solutions like a location-based wayfinding app, a patient portal platform, a mobile chatbot and more. In her overarching senior leadership role, she also oversees marketing, planning, advertising, brand management, digital, social, public relations, corporate communications and social responsibility for the six-hospital health system. She is also heavily involved in the organization’s five-year diversity strategy, was instrumental in the creation of Baptist Health’s eight-point DEI action plan and was an inaugural member of its 28-member DEI Council. As a pet project, she is involved in publishing a coffee-table book titled The Art of Healing: Transforming the Cancer Journey through Art and Design.
Suzy Jaeger. Chief Patient Experience and Access Officer at Children's Hospital Colorado (Aurora). Ms. Jaeger provides operational management and direction to Children's Hospital Colorado system's inpatient, emergency department and urgent care services as well as its outpatient clinical practice operations for the Anschutz Medical Campus. Before her current role, she served as senior vice president of ambulatory services.
Aiyana Johnson. Chief Care Experience Officer of Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (San Francisco). Ms. Johnson has been the chief care experience officer at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital since 2014. She has experience in strategic planning, project management and program evaluation. Before her current role, Ms. Johnson was the training manager at the hospital.
Debra Johnson, RN, BSN. Chief Experience Officer and Assistant Vice President of Love and Respect for Corewell Health South (St. Joseph, Mich.). Ms. Johnson has been the chief executive officer at Spectrum Health Lakeland since 2017. She is skilled in healthcare management, team building and patient safety. Ms. Johnson is also a member of the board at Lake Michigan College.
Morgan Jones. Director of Patient Experience for UNC Health Southeastern (Lumberton, N.C.). Ms. Jones is responsible for improving the overall patient experience at UNC Health Southeastern. To achieve this, she builds relationships with stakeholders, fosters open communication with patients, and introduces the Carolina Care brand to new employees, leaders and teammates. In addition, she encourages teammates to utilize the patient experience survey reporting system, analyzes patient experience metrics, and formulates recommendations for improving scores and the patient journey. Before her promotion to director in January 2024, she served as the system's patient experience manager for three years.
Franziska Jovin, MD. Senior Vice President, Chief Experience Officer of Cooper University Health Care (Camden, N.J.). Dr. Jovin has been the senior vice president, chief experience officer at Cooper University Health Care since 2019. She provides administrative oversight to the center for hospital-based services and supports health strategies. Dr. Jovin is also the co-pillar champion of quality at the health system.
Leslie Jurecko, MD. Chief Safety, Quality and Experience Officer at Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Jurecko works to align all areas of Cleveland Clinic to provide a high-quality, convenient, compassionate and safe care experience for every patient across the extensive care network. She leads the measurement strategy and works with external agencies, payers, raters and rankers to ensure that the system meets the highest standards of care. She is passionate about health equity, accountability, inclusivity and workforce engagement. Dr. Jurecko has been key in promoting initiatives like leadership rounds, which have significantly improved communication between caregivers and leaders, and the spiritual care team, which ensures that patient's emotional and spiritual needs are met. Additionally, she supports volunteer services that have had a positive impact on patients' overall experience. Dr. Jurecko is currently spearheading a multiyear strategy to drive top decile performance across all sites of care, resulting in achievements such as reducing sepsis mortality and 30-day mortality and decreasing accreditation and regulatory findings. She has also been instrumental in developing a culture of safety at Cleveland Clinic that has led to a 20% increase in safety event reporting and improved patient outcomes.
Lara Klick. Vice President and Chief Patient Experience Officer at Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital. In her role as vice president and chief patient experience officer, Ms. Klick has executive oversight over all aspects of patient experience, patient relations, guest services, patient and family engagement, spiritual health and education. She implemented the Connect, Care, Communicate model within the hospital, which urges team members to approach patient care with a human touch. Included among Tampa General’s patient experience programs is its Patient Family Advisory Council, championed by Ms. Klick, which recruits 45 former patients or family members of patients to sit on hospital committees, assist with patient education and serve in focus groups to provide feedback on various aspects of the patient delivery system. In 2023 alone, Ms. Klick grew the system's patient experience team, created and deployed a patient experience training program, implemented a new visitor management system and more. With over 27 years of experience in the field, she played a role in launching HCAHPS in 2006 and has been helping to shape the standard ever since.
Wren Lester, PhD. Chief Experience Officer of ChristianaCare (Newark, Del.). Dr. Lester was tapped to serve as ChristianaCare's inaugural CXO in April 2024. She will lead caregiver engagement and patient care experience for the system, reporting to the system's COO. She previously served as CXO for SUNY Downstate Health in Brooklyn, N.Y. Her prior leadership positions include associate vice president of patient experience at Planned Parenthood in New York City and director of quality management at RWJBarnabas Health Jersey City Medical Center in Hudson County, N.J.
Jill Mabry. Vice President of Patient Experience at Novant Health (Winston-Salem, N.C.). Ms. Mabry leads Novant Health’s culture of safe, high-quality, compassionate and connected care. For more than 18 years, she has been a champion of change by effectively uniting people, workflows and technology to drive transformation and implement behavioral interventions. Under Ms. Mabry's leadership, patient experience net promoter scores across Novant Health have grown upwards of +10 points over two years. In 2023, Novant Health created an innovative and unique customer service training program designed to engage, educate and inspire team members to deliver remarkable experiences in every interaction with patients, their families, visitors and team members. Ms. Mabry remains at the forefront of the initiative, which commenced with a strategic soft launch focused on teams critical for making a positive first impression, including patient experience, guest relations, spiritual care, public safety and non-clinical team members in medical practices. This approach resulted in a significant uptake, with over a fifth of the workforce already fulfilling the training requirements. The aim of the initiative is to train all 37,000 team members by 2025.
Scott Macicek, MD. Chief Experience Officer at Children's Hospital New Orleans. Dr. Macicek serves as chief experience officer at Children's Hospital New Orleans. Before his time at Children's Hospital New Orleans, he served at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston. Dr. Macicek is board certified in pediatrics, pediatric cardiology and adult congenital heart disease, and he is certified as a pediatric electrophysiologist by the International Board of Heart Rhythm Examiners.
Dwight McBee. Enterprise Senior Vice President, Health Equity and Chief Experience Officer at Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health (Philadelphia). Mr. McBee's responsibilities encompass the comprehensive oversight of patient experience and clinical health equity initiatives across a vast network at Jefferson Health. His domain includes 18 hospitals, 100 outpatient sites, a university and a health plan. His primary objective revolves around fostering a patient-centered care ethos tailored to the distinct needs of Jefferson's students, patients, families and plan members. He also participates in various councils, steering initiatives in health equity, community impact, and patient and family advisory. One of his primary accomplishments has been amplifying the voices of patients and their families through the establishment of the Patient Family Advisory Committee, which ensures that the healthcare experience is informed by the perspectives and insights of those it serves. Additionally, he has spearheaded initiatives to streamline language services throughout the healthcare system so that language barriers do not hinder access to quality care. Mr. McBee has recently been involved in the creation of Jefferson's newly built 20-story advanced technology facility.
Linda McHugh. Executive Vice President, Chief Experience and People Officer at Hackensack Meridian Health (Edison, N.J.). Ms. McHugh is executive vice president, chief experience and people officer for Hackensack Meridian Health, where she handles strategic management and the delivery of experience, hospitality and systemwide people programs, policies and processes. She oversees workforce planning, productivity and workforce excellence for the network, which comprises 18 hospitals, three academic medical centers, two children's hospitals, nine community hospitals, a behavioral health hospital, two rehabilitation hospitals, over 500 patient care locations and more than 35,000 team members. In 2023, under her leadership, the system focused on improving HCAHPS patient experience measures via initiatives like pipeline program development, voluntary acute care turnover reduction, the creation of a comprehensive benefits package and more. The system also launched a Stand Out tool to improve leader-team member communication, as well as a Circle of Compassion program that has given more than $2.7 million in aid since its creation in 2020. Ms. McHugh is also part of a mentorship program and serves as a sponsor for the LGBTQ+ team member resource group.
Cynthia Neiman. Chief Marketing and Experience Officer at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (Calif.). Ms. Neiman’s 70-member team contributes to the entire patient and family journey across CHOC’s two hospitals, 23 primary care practices and seven clinics. She joined the system in 2018 as chief marketing officer and expanded her title to chief experience officer in 2020, taking on responsibility for the patient and family experience, customer care, patient advocacy, translation services, concierge nursing, spiritual care, marketing, communications and the gift shop. She believes that housing these non-clinical services under a single umbrella allows CHOC to integrate the patient and family experience seamlessly across departments and locations. Under her leadership, patients and families benefit from initiatives like the Kind Concierge Program, which was designed to reduce stress and encourage healing by providing kids with personalized experiences. Kind Concierge ambassadors partner with nursing staff to round patient floors and assist with family needs such as offering refreshments and encouraging sibling connection during inpatient stays. Ms. Neiman also encourages the system to focus on staff engagement, implementing changes derived from annual engagement survey feedback and infusing the workplace with joy through regular events.
Julie Oehlert, DNP, RN. Chief Experience Officer and Brand Officer at ECU Health (Greenville, N.C.). Since 2016, Ms. Oehlert has served as CXO and brand officer for ECU Health, where she is responsible for creating healthy, caring and sustainable experiences for team members, patients and communities. She serves as a spokesperson for the human experience and implements tailored programs and resources to support the wellbeing of ECU Health’s 14,000-plus workforce. She is passionate about intentional culture disruption and applies cultural transformation theory to healthcare, a method where system team members are asked to demonstrate love and empathy for one another so that they will in turn create a caring and loving environment for patients and families. She also leverages her nursing background to institute appropriate changes in the clinical setting. Throughout the pandemic, Ms. Oehlert helped enhance team member wellbeing by supporting the development of tranquility rooms across the health system and leading the implementation of Code Lavender, a crisis intervention tool for team members in need. Recognizing the need for a continued focus on relationships between providers, team members and their patients after the pandemic, she introduced the Patient Choice Award at ECU Health to recognize teams for high ratings.
Tiffany Pankow, MD. Chief of Caregiver Wellness and Patient Experience at HonorHealth (Scottsdale, Ariz.). Dr. Pankow is focused on linking caregiver wellness and patient experience together, knowing that if caregivers are unwell, it impacts patients as well. She develops and implements strategies that enhance the wellbeing of HonorHealth's caregivers while emphasizing efforts to further develop patient satisfaction and engagement, DEI initiatives, and culture initiatives that support and sustain the changes. As a practicing family medicine physician, Dr. Pankow fully understands the importance of caregiver wellbeing and leads caregiver wellness conversations by increasing mental health access for all team members and patients, reducing stigma, limiting administrative burden, enhancing collaboration and encouraging holistic health and wellbeing. She also leads several process improvement initiatives to reduce burnout, including medical assistant training programs, workflow improvement programs and in-basket reduction programs. In addition, she is working to add behavioral health to all HonorHealth primary care locations. During her tenure, Dr. Pankow has overseen vaccine governance, led the expansion of team-based care, helmed the HonorHealth Medical Group Social Determinants of Health Initiative, and implemented a diabetes prevention program.
Shannon Patterson. Executive Director of Consumer and Patient Experience at Stamford (Conn.) Health. Ms. Patterson serves as Stamford Health's executive director of consumer and patient experience, leading the strategy and execution of consumer and patient experience across both Stamford Hospital and Stamford Health Medical Group. She handles patient experience metrics and surveys, and is responsible for implementing best practices as related to patient experience. She heads various people-centered teams, including patient relations, spiritual health and wellbeing, welcome desks, concierge, gift shop, switchboard and the Planetree Certification team. She is a member of the DEI Core group, leadership group and training committee.
Delinda Pendleton, RN, MSN. Director of Patient Experience and Strategic Clinical Initiatives at Fox Chase Cancer Center (Philadelphia). Ms. Pendleton, in collaboration with Fox Chase Cancer Center’s CNO and senior leadership, develops short- and long-term patient experience goals and leads strategic initiatives aimed at meeting those goals. She manages customer complaints, deploys customer service recovery methods, and oversees the guest services ambassadors program to reinforce Fox Chase's reputation. In 2023, Ms. Pendleton led the transition to Press Ganey for patient satisfaction metrics and saw a 94.4% overall rating of care for medical practice. Under her leadership, Fox Chase was also one of only 98 organizations awarded the Gold Certification for Excellence in Person-Centered Care by Planetree International in January 2023. For three decades, Ms. Pendleton has represented the patient's voice within Fox Chase and has celebrated the Fox Chase team members that provide exemplary customer service.
Nicole Pepitone. Vice President of Employee Experience and HR Strategy at Ochsner Health (New Orleans). Ms. Pepitone focuses on the employee experience at Ochsner Health, developing and leading the organization's culture and strategy. She works to integrate and align employee experience resources, programs and insights to build the organization’s understanding of the employee journey and its key moments. Ms. Pepitone works alongside Dr. Alison Wilde Soileau to enhance the experience of the 38,000-plus dedicated team members and 4,700-plus employed and affiliated physicians at Ochsner Health, as well as the patients at its 46 hospitals and 370-plus clinics. She has previously served as the system's director of office strategy management and chief of staff to the CEO, as well as manager of office strategy management.
Shweta Ponnappa. Chief Marketing Officer and Digital Experience Officer for Providence (Renton, Wash.). As chief marketing officer and digital experience officer for Providence, Ms. Ponnappa leads a team of strategists, technologists, engineers, data scientists, marketers and experience leaders. Since her promotion to the role in 2022, she has overseen all marketing efforts and the system's 25 consumer-facing websites, which serve tens of millions of visitors each year and drive 18% of all outpatient visits. She is responsible for onsite consumer experience, offsite local listings, systemwide and regional marketing campaigns, marketing platforms, web analytics, web compliance and overall ownership of the system's digital footprint. Among her most innovative initiatives was the implementation of machine learning-based predictive analytics that model customer needs and preferences, which resulted in enhanced customer engagement and business growth. In 2023, under Ms. Ponnappa's leadership, the system built a modern, integrated, HIPAA-compliant MarTech stack with a fully-implemented consumer data platform. This allows for immediate access to data, faster and more informed decision-making, and annual cost savings of over $1 million each year.
Mari Ransco. Senior Director of Patient Experience at University of Utah Health (Salt Lake City). Ms. Ransco oversees patient experience initiatives for the University of Utah Health's 24,000 clinicians and staffers, who perform care for 2 million patients annually. The extensive regional network includes 12 community clinics, five hospitals, and a patient referral network that covers 10% of the U.S. The system incorporates feedback from its patient network every year, using it to drive daily planning and strategic operations. Ms. Ransco spearheads the cultural and operational dedication to providing exceptional patient experience by focusing on system education, strategic deployment, and engagement among physicians and employees. In her role as co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Accelerate Learning Community, UUH's employee-driven online learning platform, she has successfully cultivated a culture of continuous learning and people-centeredness. This community has actively involved over 515 frontline faculty, staff and trainee contributors, with 5,409 internal subscribers from across the organization. Together, they have developed 668 original articles, drawing the attention of 181,000 users who have generated over 1.1 million pageviews. Since taking on the role in 2017, Ms. Ransco has skillfully upheld UUH's tradition of growth and innovation by shifting organizational focus from a patient-centric to a people-centered approach, restructuring and growing her department's capability to translate big data into actionable insights, and modernizing systems infrastructure.
Julie Rish, PhD. Vice President of Consumer Experience at AdventHealth (Altamonte Springs, Fla.). Dr. Rish leads consumer and patient experience for AdventHealth, 52-hospital faith-based healthcare delivery network with over 95,000 team members serving 8 million-plus patients annually. Dr. Rish serves as a key leader in the system’s Vision 2030 strategy for consumer centricity, focused on making AdventHealth easy to access, simple to use and helping those they serve to feel whole. Her responsibilities include driving solutions around consumer friction points, activation and change management for consumer-focused initiatives, and an emphasis on culture, learning and performance improvement for patient and consumer experience. Dr. Rish joined AdventHealth in 2023 and draws on her wealth of prior experience at The Cleveland Clinic as an experience leader and licensed clinical psychologist.
Marianne Rowan-Braun. Chief Patient Experience Officer at UCLA Health (Los Angeles). With more than 25 years of leadership experience, Ms. Rowan-Braun currently leads the assessment and execution of UCLA Health's patient experience and engagement programs. Before she took on her role at UCLA in September 2018, she was president and CEO of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Baltimore and vice president of patient experience at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.
Tracy Saula. Senior Vice President and Chief Product Experience Officer for Highmark Health (Pittsburgh). Ms. Saula is Highmark Health's senior vice president and chief product experience officer. In her role, she leads teams that develop health insurance products and solutions designed to manage or improve physical, mental and social health, thus optimizing the care experience for both customers and clinicians. Her primary focus is addressing the barriers clinicians face and driving the creation of a transformative digital clinical experience. She is also responsible for identifying the right vendor partners and working with payers, providers, technology innovators and community organizations to co-create innovative solutions. Currently, Ms. Saula is leading a push for the organization to become product-led, which will shift the focus externally to patients, the retail experience, differentiation, responsible risk-taking and an expanded view of outcomes. One of her primary accomplishments includes launching My Highmark, a member portal and app integrating care navigation, virtual health, personalized care plans, bill payment, and cost transparency in a single sign-on experience. On the clinical side, Ms. Saula is shifting clinicians towards a single, interoperable experience through a gold carding program for high performing providers, more automated utilization management tools, a new provider portal, a provider resource center, and much more. Thanks in large part to her efforts, Highmark is consistently ranked the No. 1 payer based on clinician net promoter scores in all of its markets.
Eugene Scioscia, Jr., MD. Chief Experience Officer of Allegheny Health Network (Pittsburgh). Dr. Scioscia, who has been part of AHN and its family of hospitals for almost three decades, currently serves as the system's chief experience officer. Under his leadership, the patient experience office is building a systemwide culture of service excellence and superior patient communication. At the network leadership level, Dr. Scioscia also continues to serve as vice chairman of clinical operations for the obstetrics and gynecology department. He also continues to maintain his gynecology practice. He is past president of medical staff at AHN's West Penn Hospital and previously held leadership roles at Allegheny General Hospital as well.
Amy Searls. Chief Experience Officer of Prime Healthcare (Ontario, Calif.). Ms. Searls has been the chief experience officer at Prime Healthcare since 2020. She has instilled a culture of service excellence and enhanced patient and family communication in Prime Healthcare’s 44 hospitals and more than 300 outpatient locations in 14 states. She rolled out a caring communication model, based on Jean Watson’s work, which has elevated HCAHPS and emergency department CAHPS scores across the system. Ms. Searls also leads the employee experience, enhancing Prime Healthcare’s reputation and employee engagement across the country. In addition, Ms. Searls leads Prime’s initiative to put more focus on mental health and wellness, which has included the production of a phone application available to Prime employees, while emphasizing the importance of care providers' mental health through events and leadership education.
Alison Wilde Soileau, PhD. Vice President of Patient Experience and Service Excellence at Ochsner Health (New Orleans). Dr. Soileau works in patient experience for Ochsner, working closely with physician and executive leadership to oversee the coaching, analytics, patient and provider advocacy, chaplaincy, volunteers, guest services and language services teams. Dr. Soileau works alongside Ms. Pepitone to enhance the experience of the 38,000-plus dedicated team members and 4,700-plus employed and affiliated physicians at Ochsner Health, as well as all patients at 46 hospitals and 370-plus clinics. Previously, she served as the system's assistant vice president of patient experience and director of market planning.
Julie Spencer Washington. Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing, Communications and Customer Experience Officer at Trinity Health (Livonia, Mich.). Ms. Spencer Washington has over 30 years of experience in strategic marketing, brand, team building and digital communications. Currently she guides Trinity Health's marketing, communications, customer experience and philanthropy efforts. She also serves as a board member at Amyris. Immediately prior to joining Trinity Health, she served as chief marketing officer for Champion Petfoods.
Kimberly Sweeney, RN. Vice President of Patient Care Experience at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center (Buffalo, N.Y.). In her role as vice president of patient care experience, Ms. Sweeney heads the team that navigates patients and their loved ones through clinical care and every dimension of spiritual, mental, social and survivorship support. She brings to the role a deep understanding of what a family facing cancer experiences, having participated in oncology care as both a frontline nurse and a primary caregiver. She began her career in nursing 25 years ago as an ICU nurse at Roswell Park, which is the first cancer research center in the world and one of the first to be named a NCI-designated cancer center. She went on to work as a floor nurse on Roswell Park’s inpatient unit for leukemia and lymphoma patients and as clinical research nurse coordinator with the leukemia team before taking on leadership roles in patient access and concierge services. Her unique perspective, wrought from her career background and personal experience during her late husband's five-year battle with two highly aggressive cancers, helps her compassionately oversee all aspects of patient advocacy and access for the cancer center's nearly 50,000 active patients. She also oversees supportive services, ranging from a resource center and hair salon to a pediatric cancer patient support program.
Charleen Tachibana, DNP, RN. Senior Vice President and Chief Quality, Safety and Patient Experience Officer at Virginia Mason Franciscan Health (Seattle). Dr. Tachibana provides strategic and operational accountability for clinical quality, safety and patient experience for the Northwest region. She has held various other leadership positions across acute care and ambulatory care for the system, including serving as hospital administrator. Most recently, she was senior vice president for quality, safety, experience and CNO. Her leadership can be seen throughout the Virginia Mason Franciscan Health system, which includes 10 hospitals and nearly 300 care sites.
Lesley Wilson. Chief Experience Officer for UC San Diego Health. Ms. Wilson became UC San Diego Health's CXO in July 2023 after spending seven years as associate CXO for the system. She originally joined the system in 2015 as director of patient and guest services. In her current role, she oversees the entire development process for initiatives and programs that aim to enhance the patient, guest and team member experience. She also implements patient feedback data and leads operational hubs related to patient and guest experience, including the Care Navigation Hub. Ms. Wilson was key to the system's launch of the immersive Leading the Way program, which helps unify and connect system team members.