Becker’s is shining a well-deserved spotlight on the chief experience officers who are transforming what it means to receive care. These leaders rewrite the patient journey, turning every interaction into an opportunity to deliver care that’s both clinically excellent and genuinely human.
CXOs are helping to build systems where patients feel safe, heard and cared for at every single touchpoint, and where providers have the support and environment they need to do their best work.
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.
Jennifer Jasmine E. Arfaa, PhD. Senior Vice President and Chief Patient Experience Officer for WMCHealth (Valhalla, N.Y.). In 2026, Dr. Arfaa joined WMCHealth as senior vice president and inaugural chief patient experience officer. Dr. Arfaa brings more than two decades of nationally recognized leadership in patient and family experience, workforce engagement, service excellence and cultural transformation across leading academic health systems. In her newly created enterprise role, she is leading the development of a systemwide patient and consumer experience strategy focused on strengthening compassion, communication, access and trust across every patient and workforce touchpoint. Her current role at the nine-hospital system marks the third time Dr. Arfaa has served as an inaugural CXO.
Steve Basilotto. CXO of Froedtert Theda Care Health (Milwaukee). Mr. Basilotto has been the CXO for 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.
Tina Bennett. CXO at Yale New Haven Health (New Haven, Conn.). Ms. Bennett is a senior enterprise operations and patient experience executive at Yale New Haven Health, one of the nation’s largest academic health systems. She provides system-level leadership to advance patient experience as a core driver of quality, operational performance, workforce engagement and strategic growth. She is responsible for designing, implementing and scaling enterprise operating models that integrate patient experience into daily operations, with oversight of systemwide functions including patient relations, guest services, spiritual care, language services, volunteer services and patient satisfaction. Ms. Bennett led the implementation of evidence-based bedside rounding across five hospitals, training more than 6,000 nurses and resulting in an 18-percentile rank improvement in nurse communication scores. She also partnered with population health and operational leaders to implement a centralized discharge follow-up process, leading to a nine-point increase in CMS “Care Transitions HCAHPS” performance from 2022 to 2024, and designed centralized patient experience operating models that generated more than $1 million in cost savings. A systemwide language services transformation she led achieved $1.2 million in savings and a 50% reduction in interpreter wait times. Ms. Bennett’s team has achieved an employee engagement score of 77, exceeding benchmark targets, and two Yale New Haven Health hospitals have earned Leapfrog hospital safety grade “A” ratings. She serves as an adjunct professor of healthcare studies at Southern Connecticut State University and is a member of the National Press Ganey CXO Council and Healthcare Experience Leader’s board.
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 simultaneously serves as a professor of emergency medicine with UMass Chan Medical School. He previously served as director of the school’s emergency medicine residency and the vice chair of education.
Jennifer Bollinger. Executive Vice President and Chief Brand and Consumer Officer for Sutter Health (Sacramento, Calif.). Ms. Bollinger drives systemwide consumer strategy for one of California’s largest integrated healthcare networks, aligning brand, marketing, patient experience and digital access to make care easier to access and navigate for millions of patients. Sutter added 110,000 new patients in 2025, now serving approximately 3.6 million, and continues to improve experience across the system. Digitally engaged patients are now around 62%, with 1.2 million monthly active users on Sutter’s digital patient portal. In 2025, 27.6% of appointments were scheduled online, resulting in 1.2 million more online bookings than the prior year, meeting the top benchmark among Epic organizations nationally and earning national recognition. Her teams also transformed referral navigation, clearing thousands of backlogged referrals and cutting average scheduling time from 14 to 6.8 days, expanding capacity without adding clinicians or physical footprint. Her work demonstrates how disciplined strategy and inclusive leadership can materially improve access and patient experience at scale.
Edison Bond, Jr., EdD. Chief Patient Experience Officer for Episcopal Health Services (Rockaway, N.Y.). With more than three decades of healthcare leadership, Dr. Bond brings a wealth of experience in enhancing patient-centered care to his role as chief patient experience officer at Episcopal Health Services. He is charged with advancing a compassionate, high-quality experience for patients and families through organizationwide culture transformation and service excellence practices. Before joining the health system, Dr. Bond held patient experience roles at Arnot Health in Elmira, N.Y., Metro Health System in Cleveland and Springfield, Mass.-based Baystate Health System, improving communication and patient satisfaction in both public and private academic medical settings. He holds a certificate in executive leadership from the American College of Healthcare Executives and is an active member of professional organizations like the Patient Experience Institute, The Beryl Institute and the National Association of Health Services Executives.
Eddie Borrego. Senior Vice President and CEO at Jackson South and Jackson West Medical Centers, CXO at Jackson Health System (Miami). Mr. Borrego is responsible for enhancing the overall patient experience for all of Jackson Health System. He experiments with new ideas and solutions that drive innovation and address the complex challenges healthcare faces today. As CXO, he promotes a patient-centric approach, emphasizing communication, empathy and personalized care. He also serves as senior vice president and CEO of both Jackson South and Jackson West Medical Centers.
Cynthia Burger, RN. Vice President and CXO of Dayton (Ohio) Children’s Hospital. Ms. Burger has been the vice president and CXO at Dayton Children’s Hospital since 2018. Her responsibilities include overseeing operations, patient experience and human resources for the system, helping to advance “Destination 2020,” the system’s strategic roadmap. Ms. Burger previously served as the vice president of patient and family experience at the hospital from 2014 to 2018. She has been with the hospital since 1988.
Carol Campbell. Senior Vice President and CXO at Ascension (St. Louis). Ms. Campbell leads the strategy and execution of consumer and patient experience across more than 2,000 care sites spanning 17 states and Washington, D.C., encompassing hospitals, ambulatory sites, imaging centers, labs and virtual touchpoints across the continuum of care. Since joining Ascension in 2022, she has moved the organization from a traditional patient satisfaction framework to a comprehensive consumer engagement model that aligns experience, quality and operational performance, which has resulted in a net promoter score above 80, a 40% reduction in complaints and a 67% reduction in issue resolution times. She implemented enterprise real-time feedback infrastructure across more than 2,000 sites, empowering clinicians and associates with actionable data, clear standards and rapid service recovery capabilities. Prior to joining healthcare, Ms. Campbell served as head of global customer experience and consumer insight at Delta Air Lines, where she led consumer-centric recovery decision-making during the global pandemic and revitalized the company’s consumer insight function through applied data science. At The Walt Disney Company, she developed and secured CEO approval for a multi-billion-dollar global experience strategy to revitalize an underperforming segment, aligning 11 business unit presidents behind a unified plan. Recognizing a gap in formal customer experience leadership pipelines, she partnered with Michigan State University to launch North America’s first master’s degree in customer experience management in 2022. She is a sought-after keynote speaker, teaches at the collegiate level and has been featured in national publications including The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, and currently serves on the customer experience advisory board for American Airlines.
Danita Cohen. CXO at University Medical Center of Southern Nevada (Las Vegas). Ms. Cohen is responsible for leading all communication and outreach strategies at UMC, including patient, employee and physician experience initiatives, in addition to marketing, advertising and public relations. She developed and promoted the “ICARE” framework, a communication model supported by an ongoing series of training courses focused on five key principles of identifying, communicating, asking, responding and exiting, which has resulted in significant gains in patient and staff satisfaction scores. All of UMC’s nearly 5,000 employees receive training on this framework on a biannual basis, and Ms. Cohen and her team also provide specialized training for all new employees as part of onboarding. Starting her career at UMC as a public relations coordinator, she rose to chief experience officer while building a new experience division dedicated to patient and staff experience, public relations, branding, marketing, physician outreach and internal communication. Ms. Cohen has earned a reputation as a leading national expert in crisis communication, most notably leading UMC’s public relations response to the largest mass shooting in modern American history in October 2017 in Las Vegas, where UMC serves as Nevada’s only level 1 trauma center. She frequently helps hospitals across the nation prepare for mass casualty incidents, sharing lessons learned and best practices for communicating amid tragedy. UMC has earned Las Vegas Review-Journal “Best of Las Vegas” gold awards in categories including best urgent care and walk-in clinic, best primary care, best radiology and best place to have a baby.
Eugenia Coronado. Vice President of Specialty Services and Patient Experience for NeighborHealth (Boston). Ms. Coronado, as the primary leader of specialty services and patient experience at NeighborHealth, has transformed the system into a benchmark for accessible, culturally competent care. She launched the office of the patient advocate and a dedicated patient experience department, initiatives that drove an improvement in satisfaction scores and redefined patient engagement within the state’s largest community-based health system. Her leadership of interpreter services, a program that delivers interpretations across more than 65 languages, ensures equitable access to care for all. During a major health center merger, Ms. Coronado maintained service quality and successfully integrated specialty and family medicine offerings, all while enhancing patient satisfaction. Her work has earned NeighborHealth numerous accolades from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration and The Boston Globe.
Linh Dang. CXO 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. Prior to joining Cook County Health, she served as patient experience officer and senior director of arts in medicine at NYC Health + Hospitals in New York City. She brings more than 15 years of experience to her role.
Tanesha Daniels. Vice President of Patient Engagement and Experience at The Loretto Hospital (Chicago). Ms. Daniels has been in charge of directing patient engagement and experience 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.
Joe Dant. Chief Growth Officer for Endeavor Health (Evanston, Ill.). Mr. Dant brings over three decades of experience to Endeavor Health, where he oversees growth strategy, physician alignment, philanthropy and patient experience across a high-performing system. A former U.S. Naval officer and healthcare executive, Mr. Dant has held roles in operations, pharmaceuticals and health insurance, most recently serving as president of Endeavor Health’s southern region and institutes including Naperville, Ill.-based Edward Hospital, Elmhurst (Ill.) Hospital and Naperville-based Linden Oaks Behavioral Health Hospital. His collaborative leadership was essential during the 2022 NorthShore and Edward-Elmhurst Health merger, helping to unify and grow the newly formed Endeavor Health. Mr. Dant has helped drive significant recognitions for the organization, including Forbes‘ “America’s Dream Employers” for 2025. He also represents Endeavor Health through roles on the Naperville Development Partnership and Illinois Hospital Association’s finance and audit committee.
Lisa Drumbore. CXO and Vice President of Marketing Communication for Saint Peter’s Healthcare System (New Brunswick, N.J.). Ms. Drumbore joined St. Peter’s Healthcare in 2001 as director of service excellence, serving in the role for 15 years. She was then appointed vice president and CXO of the system in May 2016.
Alan Dubovsky. Vice President and Chief Patient Experience Officer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Los Angeles). Mr. Dubovsky has more than 20 years of experience in healthcare patient experience improvement and is responsible for facilitating all patient experience efforts across Cedars-Sinai’s 1,100-bed hospital system, including its clinics and outpatient areas. He also leads interpretation services, patient advocacy and lobby services, overseeing the main entry points to the campus. Mr. Dubovsky is the co-founder of the West Coast Patient Experience Collaborative, currently comprising more than 20 leading medical centers across the Western U.S. He hosts expert classes, workshops and symposiums globally on excelling in the field of experience, including engagements in the Gulf Cooperation Council, Europe, Africa and South America, which have yielded engagement scores of 95% or higher. He has helped lead Cedars-Sinai to continued improvement in patient experience metrics, including multiple Press Ganey “Guardian of Excellence” awards, and has presented at national and regional events. Mr. Dubovsky serves as an advisory board member of WebMD Ignite. Prior to joining Cedars-Sinai in 2016, he served at Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, where he led patient experience and physician engagement, international health and talent development for the physician group practices.
Janice English. Vice President of the Patient and Family Experience Office at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (Memphis, Tenn.). Ms. English has led St. Jude’s patient and family experience office since its founding in 2016, following 30 years as a St. Jude nurse and clinical administrator. She and her staff support patients and their families throughout every step of their journey at St. Jude to ensure the best experience possible. Her scope of oversight includes patient family-centered care, family and guest and volunteer services, concierge services and the patient experience project office. She also directs Family Commons, a 45,000-square-foot space for recreation, rest, school support and privacy for families dealing with the trauma of catastrophic disease during long treatment days. Ms. English created every program within her scope of oversight and promotes the importance of patient experience and patient family centered care through staff awareness, partnering with family advisors and promoting human connection and empathic communication strategies. Her 30 years of clinical experience as a pediatric oncology nurse and outpatient clinic director inform her patient-centered approach to experience leadership.
Rick Evans. Senior Vice President of Patient Services and CXO for NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital (New York City). A pioneer in healthcare experience leadership, Mr. Evans serves as CXO for NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, where he oversees experience strategy. With prior CXO roles at Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital and extensive leadership experience at NYP, Mr. Evans has positioned the system as a national model in patient-centered care. He is a frequent national speaker, a published voice in NEJM Catalyst and The Patient Experience Journal, and a regular columnist with over 40 thought leadership pieces to his name. Mr. Evans also holds prominent leadership roles, including co-chair of the Beryl Institute’s patient experience policy forum and commissioner for the American Nurses Credentialing Center Magnet designation. Under his guidance, NYP has consistently ranked among the nation’s top hospitals, with recognitions from Vizient, the Joint Commission and U.S. News & World Report.
Barbara Fonte. Senior Vice President and Chief Impact Officer at Jackson Health System (Miami). As the first chief impact officer at Jackson Health System, Ms. Fonte leads a pioneering division dedicated to the strategic integration of managed care, population health and medical economics, steering the organization’s transition from volume to value for one of the nation’s largest and most complex public health systems. She manages a $1.5 billion managed care portfolio, leading high-stakes payer negotiations and executing strategies that sustain the system’s mission of providing world-class care to all residents regardless of ability to pay. Her strategic oversight of the office of impact resulted in $29.8 million of financial impact in fiscal year 2024, exceeding the system’s budget by more than $17 million. Ms. Fonte designed a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Homeless Trust intervention that integrated housing as a clinical intervention for high-utilizers, achieving an 82.2% reduction in acute care utilization and an 86.2% decrease in healthcare costs for the cohort. She also led the Federally Qualified Health Center care integration initiative, coordinating a unified framework with eight major community health centers to streamline specialty referrals and improve longitudinal care for thousands of underserved residents. In 2024, she was named a “Woman of Impact” by the Miami-Dade County Commission on the Status of Women, and in 2025 she received the YWCA “First, But Not The Last” trailblazer award, recognizing her as a pioneer who has broken barriers in healthcare administration and community advocacy. As an inaugural “Carol Emmott Fellow” and board chair of the Health Foundation of South Florida, she oversees more than $160 million in assets directed toward regional health equity initiatives. A 2025 cover profile in Hispanic Executive magazine showcased her approach to scaling population health programs as a national model for executive leadership.
Jameyshia S. Franklin, DPA. Director of Patient Experience at Fox Chase Cancer Center (Philadelphia). Dr. Franklin works closely with Fox Chase Cancer Center’s CNO and senior leadership to develop short- and long-term patient experience goals and leads strategic initiatives to reach them, overseeing patient relations, the guest services ambassadors program and complaint resolution. Since joining Fox Chase in 2024, she has transformed the role into an engine of change where feedback drives improvement across the institution. Dr. Franklin leads the organization’s patient and family advisory council, comprising a dozen patients and caregivers along with Fox Chase administrators, a physician champion, and representatives of clinical and administrative groups. This model has since been adopted by other institutions across the broader Temple University Health System. She also established a multi-institutional external roundtable collaborative to share best practices, partnering with organizations such as Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle and the University of California, San Francisco Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, with Fox Chase’s second roundtable scheduled for fall 2026. Dr. Franklin developed and launched nurse navigation survey questions in partnership with Press Ganey, making Fox Chase the first and only cancer center to include such questions on its patient satisfaction survey. She also helped launch a “Sacred Time” rounding initiative for nurse leaders, giving them an uninterrupted daily block of time to see patients and address issues at the point of service, and implemented nurse leader rounding for same-day surgery patients. Fox Chase earned the Press Ganey “Human Experience Guardian of Excellence” award for employee and physician experience in 2026.
Julia Gaviria. Chief Patient Experience Officer at UCLA Health (Los Angeles). Ms. Gaviria serves as systemwide steward of the patient experience across UCLA Health’s five hospitals and more than 280 ambulatory clinics, setting and advancing a unified vision for patient experience that aligns with the organization’s mission, vision and values. She oversees several operational areas that directly influence the patient journey, including experience operations, language services, hospitality and volunteer services, ensuring a cohesive approach that supports patients from admission through discharge and across the continuum of care. Among the youngest chief leaders in the history of UCLA Health, Ms. Gaviria began her career in hospitality before pivoting to healthcare and working as a phlebotomist to gain frontline clinical experience. She spent more than a decade in health technology and healthcare operations before transitioning to academic medicine at UCLA Health. Her primary accomplishments include building and leading enterprise-level patient experience strategies, integrating operational and cultural standards across complex systems, and serving as a trusted bridge between frontline staff and executive leadership. UCLA Health ranks No. 1 in both California and Los Angeles according to U.S. News & World Report and for the 36th consecutive year earned a place on the publication’s “Best Hospitals Honor Roll” list. Vizient awarded UCLA Health the 2024 “Ambulatory Quality and Accountability Award,” measuring quality of outpatient care across five domains including access, quality, efficiency and equity.
Tyler Gegen. System Executive Director of Patient Experience at UnityPoint Health (West Des Moines, Iowa). Mr. Gegen leads UnityPoint Health’s strategy to deliver exceptional experiences to patients, families and communities, overseeing patient experience, patient relations, language and accessibility services, volunteer services and spiritual care across the multi-state system. He leads the system’s patient feedback systems, experience mapping programs and strategies to enhance culture, partnering with senior leaders and frontline teams to embed human-centered practices into organizational culture. Mr. Gegen stood up patient and family advisory councils across all system markets, deployed new technology that improved interpreter access while reducing documentation burden for staff, and championed transparency work. In 2025, he received the national “Ruth Ravich Patient Advocacy” award for his contributions. Beyond UnityPoint Health, he serves on the board of The Beryl Institute, chairs the patient experience advisory board, and is a member of the strategic advisory board and patient advocacy council. Prior to UnityPoint Health, Mr. Gegen held patient experience leadership roles at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, TMC Health in Tucson, Ariz. and UMC Health System in Lubbock, Texas.
Heather Geisler. Executive Vice President and Chief Brand and Experience Officer of Henry Ford Health (Detroit). Ms. Geisler came to Henry Ford Health in 2020. She provides brand strategy and consumer experience leadership. In her role, she is tasked with leading the system’s brand modernization and a dynamic activation plan that involved more than 60 cross-functional teams. Her work has elevated the visibility of Henry Ford Health regionally, nationally and internationally, building a brand that not only honors the health system’s profound legacy, but also positions it as a forward-thinking leader. 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 Crain’s Detroit Business’ list of “Notable Leaders in Marketing” in 2023.
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 to 2015.
Sven Gierlinger. Senior Vice President and CXO at Northwell Health (New Hyde Park, N.Y.). Mr. Gierlinger drives cultural transformation across Northwell Health with a customer-obsessed mindset, bringing a unique perspective as a former executive with the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company and as a patient who has battled Guillain-Barré syndrome. He recruited Michelin-starred culinary talent, transforming hospital food and upgrading kitchens systemwide in the process. As a result of this initiative, the health system’s food quality now averages in the 90th percentile, with seven hospitals at the 94th percentile or higher, a benchmark no other health system in the nation has achieved. The American Culinary Federation honored Northwell with its prestigious “Culinary Excellence Award.” Mr. Gierlinger also launched a novel “Customer Effort Pulse Survey,” the first in healthcare to holistically measure effort in addition to loyalty and satisfaction. In addition, he spearheaded patient and customer experience integration efforts between Northwell and newly acquired Danbury, Conn.-based Nuvance Health. He has reached the milestone of educating more than 4,000 physicians and advanced healthcare providers via a course focused on elevating provider communication and empathy skills. Northwell has earned recognition from Time Magazine as one of the “TIME100 Companies,” Fortune Magazine as one of the “Best Workplaces in Healthcare” and one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For,” and as one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Companies.” Mr. Gierlinger serves as an executive board member of The Beryl Institute and a founding council member of the Institute of Innovation.
Alexander Greengold. Senior Vice President and Chief Consumer Experience Officer at Memorial Hermann Health System (Houston). Mr. Greengold leads the strategy and execution of consumer experience initiatives across Memorial Hermann Health System, overseeing multidisciplinary teams spanning analytics, experience design, operational implementation and patient education, with a focus on designing care journeys that are predictable, transparent and human-centered. A central focus of his role is shifting the organization from reactive to predictive and preventive, catching potential issues earlier in the patient care journey and combining operational data, digital interaction signals and AI to identify potential friction points in real time. Under his leadership, the system has embedded digital tools directly into care workflows, including mobile check-in capabilities, real-time messaging tools that keep families informed during procedures, personalized video guidance instead of paper education packets, and automated follow-up outreach that escalates concerns when needed. Mr. Greengold has also helped advance emerging smart hospital concepts, with smart room pilots integrating bedside digital applications, voice-enabled controls, digital concierge tools and virtual nursing support. He also helped lead the “Memorial Hermann Experience,” a systemwide service culture initiative developed in collaboration with the Disney Institute that has reached more than 40,000 employees and partners. Mr. Greengold brings a cross-sector perspective to his role, drawing from prior leadership positions at Dish Network and AOL, among others. He serves on the leadership committees of both the Disney Institute Healthcare Collaborative and the Health Management Academy’s consumer and digital experience group, and has spoken at several healthcare conferences.
Tanya Hammon. Director of Experience at Parkview Health (Fort Wayne, Ind.). Over the past four years, Ms. Hammon has led Parkview Health’s transition away from measuring top-box scores to tracking and trending net promoter scores at an entity and provider level, with scores increasing more than three points systemwide. She has led Parkview’s service recovery program over the past 18 months, helping frontline co-workers feel more comfortable listening to, empathizing with and addressing patient complaints in the moment. Within the last year, Ms. Hammon launched gratitude initiatives to recognize physicians, nurses, practitioners and administrative staff cited by patients for excellent service, including a quarterly gratitude report and individualized kudos to recognized providers. These efforts are credited as an important factor in systemwide retention, which has seen voluntary turnover below 10%, which is approximately five points better than national benchmarks. In September 2025, Ms. Hammon partnered with nurse directors to launch a new digital leader rounding tool, with the initial six months showing upward trends in nurse communication and listening scores. She is currently working with the system’s marketing department on public-facing campaigns highlighting examples of excellent patient care as a way to drive market share. Parkview Health has earned NRC Health’s “Consumer Loyalty Award,” the “Excellence in Experience Award,” and the “Excellence in Patient Experience Award” for No. 1 medium-sized system in 2023 and 2024 under her direction.
Philynn Hepschmidt. Vice President of Patient Access at Penn Medicine (Philadelphia). Ms. Hepschmidt has more than 20 years of healthcare leadership experience and has been at the forefront of transforming patient access and engagement, driving large-scale initiatives that redefine the patient experience. She led pivotal projects including the implementation of the ambulatory EHR, the expansion of Penn Medicine’s patient portal to more than 1.5 million users and the scaling of self-service technologies such as online scheduling, waitlist automation and proactive patient communications. As leader of the system’s patient engagement center scheduling operations, she is co-leading a multimillion-dollar, multi-year effort to build a world-class customer service center that enhances online scheduling, optimizes digital communications across the patient journey, and leverages AI to improve access and health outcomes. Penn Medicine faculty have in recent years been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the Breakthrough Prize, the “Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award” from the Lasker Foundation, and numerous other honors in life sciences and clinical care.
Terry Hudson-Jinks, DNP, RN. Chief Patient Experience Officer, Senior Vice President of Patient Care Services and CNO at Tufts Medical Center (Boston). Dr. 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.
Laura Irvine. Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy and Experience Officer at Texas Health Resources (Arlington). Ms. Irvine is an executive at Texas Health Resources, the largest nonprofit health system in North Texas, which serves more than 1.7 million patients annually and encompasses more than 420 access points, including 29 hospital locations and a range of outpatient facilities, surgery centers and clinics. In her role, she focuses on driving the health system’s strategy and growth priorities and fostering its overall consumer experience. The strategy and market insights, enterprise data and analytics, IT, business development, community health improvement, and marketing and communications teams all report to her. Since joining Texas Health in 2022, Ms. Irvine has led a landscape analysis of the North Texas region to develop additional access points, and in 2025 the system expanded existing hospitals and broke ground on new facilities across the region. She has led Texas Health to offer new pathways to care, including “Behavioral Health Quick Care Visits” and the expansion of Breeze Urgent Care clinics, as well as the launch of “Texas Health Connect,” a mobile-first website designed to create a simpler user experience. Through a rigorous AI governance structure, Texas Health has introduced a number of clinical and business operations AI tools under her oversight, and her team is developing an AI blueprint to guide the health system’s priorities. Texas Health has ranked first on Fortune‘s “Best Places to Work in Health Care” list in both 2024 and 2025, and third on its “Best Workplace in Texas” list for both years. Ms. Irvine is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and serves on the board of directors for the Baylor University Health Care administration program.
Suzy Jaeger. Chief Patient Experience and Access Officer at Children’s Hospital Colorado (Aurora). Ms. Jaeger is responsible for designing systems and services to optimize patient and family experience at Children’s Hospital Colorado, a top ranked children’s hospital serving more than 300,000 patients annually across the state, region and nation. She has served the organization for 34 years. She sets strategic direction for access to care and provides executive leadership for a broad portfolio of family services including clinical social work, child life, creative and integrative care, patient-family experience, public safety and security, food services and the association of volunteers. Ms. Jaeger helped lead the hospital’s relocation from a downtown facility to a state-of-the-art hospital on the Anschutz Medical Campus, one of the most significant projects in the hospital system’s 113-year history, and has been instrumental in opening new locations across the Denver Metro and Southern Colorado regions. She pioneered Children’s Colorado’s Health Pavilion location, an innovative medical home model providing easy access to core clinical and support services including primary care, mental health, dental care and therapy care. Ms. Jaeger has championed a robust offering of clinical support services that enable patients to develop coping skills, including the “Seacrest Studio,” a gaming and technology program and a medical dog program, as well as services that support families caring for children with complex conditions. She also leads the development of foundational digital capabilities such as online scheduling, referral management and e-consults. Children’s Colorado has been named to the U.S. News & World Report honor roll and designated the No. 1 children’s hospital in the Rocky Mountain region in both the 2024-25 and 2025-26 rankings.
Franziska Jovin, MD. Senior Vice President for Patient Access and Ambulatory Services and CXO of Cooper University Health Care (Camden, N.J.). Dr. Jovin joined Cooper University Health Care in 2019. In her role as senior vice president for patient access and ambulatory services and CXO, she provides administrative oversight to the center for hospital-based services and supports health strategies. Dr. Jovin is also the medical director of the Cooper Program for Patients with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, and holds an academic appointment as associate professor of medicine at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. She was chosen as a finalist by Women We Admire in 2025 for her contributions to care delivery in New Jersey, and was featured in ROI-NJ’s “Women in Business 2025” thanks to her impact on patient experience and access.
Carol Lewis, MD. Chief Patient Experience Officer, ad interim at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston). Dr. Lewis drives initiatives to provide high-quality, high-touch care at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, overseeing areas including patient advocacy, patient education, food and nutrition services, transportation, social work, spiritual care and language access. She provides strategic oversight for the center’s patient navigation program, a comprehensive effort that helps patients and their loved ones feel supported from diagnosis through survivorship. Dr. Lewis also serves as medical director for the institution’s communication skills program, implemented following an analysis of the institution’s grievance data, and serves as a facilitator of the “Relationship Establishment, Development, and Engagement to Communicate” program. Her research background is rooted in quality improvement for head and neck cancer care, and she previously led quality improvement initiatives in MD Anderson’s Daneen and Charles Stiefel Head and Neck Center, where her work drove patient satisfaction survey improvements at or above the 75th percentile across all domains. Dr. Lewis has been ranked in the top 1% of providers nationally according to “CG-CAHPS” scores for the past three years and received MD Anderson’s internal “Commitment to Mentoring Award” in 2022.
Komal Lodaria. Senior Director of System Care Experience at NYC Health + Hospitals (New York City). Ms. Lodaria leads and manages a comprehensive portfolio of patient experience and employee engagement initiatives across NYC Health + Hospitals, driving key projects across all care settings, including inpatient, emergency, post-acute, ambulatory surgery, behavioral health, urgent care and community services. With a background in organizational psychology, she utilizes expertise in data analytics, change management and team building to transform organizational culture and ensure the success of care experience initiatives. Under her direction, the “ICARE with Kindness” initiative successfully trained more than 33,000 employees, with 39,000 employees pledging to uphold those values, and the emergency department’s overall rating of care increased 11 percentile points in 2025. Her work on the 2025 employee feedback survey garnered a 59% response rate, translating to 35,693 voices heard, and resulted in employee engagement rising statistically to 3.83 out of 5.00, with the system reaching the 50th percentile compared to other public and private organizations in New York state. Post-acute care saw a 15-point increase in the likelihood-of-recommending metric and a 22-point increase in the overall assessment metric under her guidance. Ms. Lodaria was recognized with the “Gage Honorable Mention Award” for quality improvement from America’s Essential Hospitals in June 2023 for her “Care Improvement Contest” initiative, which increased physician and nursing communication scores systemwide. She also assisted nine sites in attaining the “Excellence in Person-Centered Care” designation through Planetree International.
Gerard “Gerry” Lupacchino. Senior Vice President of Human Experience at Hartford (Conn.) HealthCare. Having first joined Hartford HealthCare in 2015, Mr. Lupacchino leads the system’s strategic vision and execution for all aspects of patient experience, patient advocacy and patient translation services, alongside colleague engagement, learning and development, organizational development and leadership development. He champions the core belief that colleague engagement is inextricably linked to patient experience. Armed with this knowledge, he drives colleague engagement strategies through data analytics, pulse surveys and recognition programs. During a personally challenging time, Mr. Lupacchino trained 2,500 leaders in intentional leadership, and those who participated still credit his authenticity and vulnerability with shaping their own views of leadership. He led the refresh of Hartford HealthCare’s leadership behaviors, aligning behaviors with the organization’s aspirations for its own identity and daily practice. Under his leadership, Hartford HealthCare received the “Platinum Bell Seal for Workplace Mental Health” from Mental Health America for the third consecutive year in 2025, and was named the No. 1 place to work in Connecticut for career development by Careerminds in 2025. Mr. Lupacchino serves as a mentor to colleagues at all levels, and is immediate past chair of the board of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, where he remains a board member. He’s also a member of the board of visitors for education nursing and health professionals at the University of Hartford.
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. She has been a champion of change by effectively uniting people, workflows and technology to drive transformation and implement behavioral interventions. 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.
Scott Macicek, MD. CXO at Manning Family Children’s. Dr. Macicek serves as CXO at Manning Family Children’s. Prior, 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, BSN, RN. Chief Patient Experience Officer at RWJBarnabas Health (West Orange, N.J.). Mr. McBee serves as the chief patient experience officer for RWJBarnabas Health, New Jersey’s largest and most comprehensive academic health system, where he acts as a central force pulling together diverse teams that enhance patient-centered care across the system and its flagship facility, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick. Since joining the organization in September 2024, he has overseen the centralization of the patient advocacy program, unified patient support functions, simplified processes and established a single, accessible point of contact for patient concerns, a model that has expedited response times and strengthened transparency and trust between patients and providers. Mr. McBee leads RWJBarnabas Health’s participation in the HCAHPS survey, working closely with the patient experience team to translate survey findings into implementable strategies that have boosted patient satisfaction scores and provided clear benchmarks for evaluating success. He also oversees the system’s patient and family advisory councils, a systemwide initiative that brings real-life patient and family insights directly into healthcare decision-making through regular meetings, open forums and collaborative workshops. His leadership has contributed to national recognition, including the 2024 Press Ganey “Human Experience Award” for NICU excellence at Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, N.J. Mr. McBee is the recipient of the 2025 “National Humanism in Medicine Award” from the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, a 2025 “Best You Can Be Award” honoree from the Today is a Good Day organization and a 2025 “Presidential Medal of Distinction” awardee from Stockton University. Prior to joining RWJBarnabas Health, he served as executive vice president of clinical health equity and chief experience officer at Philadelphia-based Jefferson Health.
Linda McHugh. Executive Vice President and Chief Experience and People Officer at Hackensack Meridian Health (Edison, N.J.). Ms. McHugh is responsible for the strategic management and delivery of experience, hospitality, and people programs, policies and processes across Hackensack Meridian Health, a network comprising 18 hospitals, more than 500 patient care locations, and more than 38,000 team members and 7,000 physicians. She implemented a multi-year strategic plan built on a “Committed Coach” philosophy that transforms managers into leaders and focuses on the four pillars of involve, communicate, celebrate and check-in. This framework is credited with teams being six times more likely to call the system a great place to work. Under Ms. McHugh’s leadership, the system has seen a 25% reduction in voluntary turnover and more than 1,800 internal promotions in two years, with a nurse vacancy rate that is half the national average. Ms. McHugh also oversees a comprehensive wellbeing framework encompassing programs in eating, sleeping, movement and mental health support, including the “WeCare” peer support program and the “Circle of Compassion” financial aid program. Under her leadership, the system was ranked No. 4 among health systems in the U.S. on Fortune‘s “Best Workplace in Health Care” in both 2024 and 2025, and was recognized by the Lown Institute as the top nonprofit health system in the nation for giving back to communities. Prior to her role at Hackensack Meridian Health, she served for 35 years at Cleveland Clinic, most recently as a transformational leader of human resources since 2016.
Steve Meth. Vice President and Chief Patient Experience Officer for Johns Hopkins Medicine (Baltimore). Since joining Johns Hopkins Medicine in 2023, Mr. Meth has led efforts to embed patient- and family-centered care across Johns Hopkins Medicine, a globally respected academic health system. He has enhanced transparency by publishing provider-level experience data, initiated an automated emergency department communication system for families, and improved post-discharge outcomes through high-touch follow-up calls. His innovative communication workshops train clinicians in high-stress interactions, reducing burnout and strengthening therapeutic relationships. Mr. Meth’s leadership approach is both data-driven and deeply human, leveraging patient feedback to build sustainable change across multiple care settings. He also contributes at the national level, serving on CMS’s pre-rulemaking measure review committee to influence future quality standards. His work has been instrumental in Johns Hopkins Medicine sustaining its elite rankings and in advancing person-centered care across its many sites of service.
Keisha Mullings-Smith. Vice President and Chief Consumer Experience Officer for University of Chicago Medicine. Since joining UChicago Medicine in 2022, Ms. Mullings-Smith has catalyzed a remarkable improvement in patient experience. She developed and launched a five-year consumer experience transformation strategy that unites patient care, workforce culture and service excellence into one integrated approach. This reorganization created a new consumer experience division, aligning patient and family engagement, human resources and employee engagement to emphasize the interconnectedness of employee and patient satisfaction. With two decades of experience in healthcare operations and patient experience leadership, her efforts have significantly boosted engagement across UChicago Medicine’s workforce. Her leadership continues to drive both employee empowerment and consumer loyalty. She brings past leadership experience from her time at Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Medicine and Washington, D.C.-based George Washington University Hospital.
Julie Oehlert, DNP, RN. CXO for ECU Health (Greenville, N.C.). Dr. Oehlert has revolutionized the culture at ECU Health by integrating human experience principles into every level of care, championing initiatives like the “Big E” that connects team member experience with patient outcomes. Leveraging her clinical background, she has introduced impactful programs such as tranquility rooms and “Code Lavender” to support the emotional wellbeing of frontline staff. Her forward-thinking response during the Covid-19 pandemic included the creation of non-clinical support roles on inpatient and emergency teams, reducing nurse burnout and enhancing patient satisfaction. Thanks in large part to her work, ECU Health earned national acclaim, with PEP Health naming it a top performer in patient experience for multiple consecutive years. Dr. Oehlert also launched the “Patient Choice Award” to celebrate units achieving exceptional and improved experience ratings, reinforcing a culture of compassion and excellence.
Tiffany Pankow, MD. Chief of Caregiver Wellness and Patient Experience at HonorHealth (Scottsdale, Ariz.). Dr. Pankow leads strategies that ensure every patient interaction reflects HonorHealth’s commitment to collaborative, compassionate, high-quality healthcare. As a practicing family physician, she brings frontline credibility to her leadership, engaging clinicians directly in process improvement and translating feedback into operational changes that reduce burnout. Her leadership helped the system earn the American Medical Association’s “Joy in Medicine” health system recognition in 2023, a national distinction honoring sustained commitment to physician wellbeing. She also advances integrated mental healthcare by leading efforts to embed behavioral health services within every primary care location, expanding access and reducing stigma. Dr. Pankow created and implemented a multidisciplinary diabetes prevention program that uses behavioral change techniques and coordinates care among a clinical diabetes nurse, educator, dietitian, behavioral health specialists and a physical therapist to help high-risk patients adopt healthier lifestyles. In 2022, she received the “Wallace A. Reed, MD Award” from the Arizona Medical Association for healthcare innovation, recognizing her leadership in mass Covid testing, telemedicine expansion and mobile vaccination events. She also received the “Martin L. Block Award” from Rise Health for advancing senior health through clinical leadership, policy vision and sustained system improvement.
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 also on The Beryl Institute’s patient experience advisory board.
Mari Ransco. Associate Executive Director of Patient Experience at University of Utah Health (Salt Lake City). Ms. Ransco oversees patient experience initiatives for University of Utah Health’s clinicians and staffers, who perform care for 2 million patients annually. 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”, the system’s employee-driven online learning platform, she has successfully cultivated a culture of continuous learning and people-centeredness. Since taking on the role in 2017, Ms. Ransco has skillfully upheld the system’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. 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.
Dawn Robbins. System Associate Vice President of Patient Experience for Baptist Health System (Louisville, Ky.). Ms. Robbins has elevated patient experience across Baptist Health’s 400-plus points of care by architecting a strategic, measurable framework rooted in collaboration, cultural transformation and service excellence. Her leadership of the tiered performance structure drove systemwide gains, increasing the medical group composite rank and pushing the overall system into the top quartile nationally. Ms. Robbins also authored and deployed a five-year enterprise patient experience strategy that rapidly aligned practices and improved patient outcomes. A U.S. Air Force veteran with more than 25 years of experience in healthcare operations, including her tenure at Press Ganey, she combines tactical insight with servant leadership.
Erica Rubinstein. Vice President of Patient Experience at Mount Sinai Health System (New York City). Ms. Rubinstein leads patient experience across Mount Sinai Health System, a complex, integrated system of 50,000 employees, seven hospitals, and more than 400 outpatient locations serving communities across New York City, Long Island and the broader tri-state region. She oversees systemwide strategy spanning patient experience, patient relations, volunteer services, language access and workforce engagement. A transformational leader, Ms. Rubinstein partners across the enterprise to elevate the voice of patients and families, embedding transparency and real-time feedback into care delivery to drive continuous improvement. Under her leadership, Mount Sinai has achieved sustained, year-over-year gains in patient experience metrics while advancing innovative programs in language access and staff engagement. Her team’s work has earned national recognition for improving the quality, safety and equity of care, while strengthening the experience for patients, families and the healthcare workforce alike.
Dara Bliss Schwartz, PsyD. CXO at Sharp HealthCare (San Diego, Calif.). Dr. Schwartz brings a unique blend of clinical expertise and strategic vision to Sharp HealthCare’s patients and workforce, as well as the broader San Diego community. She began her journey with the system in 2008 as a predoctoral psychology intern and has dedicated more than 17 years to advancing experience at Sharp HealthCare, transitioning from clinical roles to transformative leadership positions. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Schwartz led systemwide efforts to support the emotional wellbeing of the workforce, launching initiatives such as “Stress First Aid” and “Critical Care Conversations.” As the system celebrates 25 years of “The Sharp Experience,” she leads efforts in crafting memorable experiences that honor the organization’s legacy and inspire its future. Her foundation as a clinical psychologist uniquely amplifies her impact, informing her understanding of human behavior, emotional needs and interpersonal dynamics, which she then applies to advance patient, employee and physician wellbeing. Dr. Schwartz also designed innovative experiences such as the 2025 all-staff assembly and “Sharp’s Got Talent,” and hosts senior executive Q&A sessions that foster transparency and connection across the organization. She serves as co-chair of the patient experience steering council at the system and is a psychology program faculty advisor at Sharp Mesa Vista Hospital in San Diego.
Eugene Scioscia, Jr., MD. CXO of Allegheny Health Network (Pittsburgh). Dr. Scioscia, who has been part of Allegheny Health Network and its family of hospitals for approximately three decades, currently serves as the system’s CXO. 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. CXO at Prime Healthcare (Ontario, Calif.). Ms. Searls oversees the full spectrum of human experience across Prime Healthcare’s 54 hospitals, more than 360 outpatient locations, and over 60,000 employees and affiliated physicians. Her role spans patient, employee and physician experience, as well as spiritual care and volunteer services. She leads the development and execution of systemwide experience strategy, including the implementation of a caring communication model grounded in Jean Watson’s theory of human caring. She also partners closely with hospital CEOs, CNOs and operational leaders to ensure alignment between clinical quality, safety and the human experience. Over the past year, several Prime Healthcare hospitals achieved top quartile emergency department “CAHPS” performance as a direct result of her leadership, coaching strategies, and focus on elevating communication and teamwork in high-acuity care settings. Ms. Searls also played a central role in integrating newly acquired hospitals, including eight in Illinois in March 2025 and three in Central Maine in February 2026, ensuring new teams were supported through the transition and momentum was maintained across the established system. She has championed a comprehensive approach to employee wellbeing, advancing the system’s employee wellness app, broadening access to mental health resources, and expanding offerings that support resilience, psychological safety and joy in work. Ms. Searls also brings leadership to mission services, ethics, community benefits and volunteer services. Previous roles include CXO and executive director of patient experience at UCHealth in Aurora, Colo., and director of service excellence at both Phoenix-based Banner Health and Livonia, Mich.-based Trinity Health.
Hillery Smith Shay. Chief Marketing and Experience Officer and Senior Vice President of Communications for Children’s Minnesota (St. Paul). Ms. Shay first joined Children’s Minnesota in 2021 as vice president of marketing and communications, then moved into her expanded role in August 2024. She is responsible for defining and building an organizationwide experience strategy and providing strategic direction for organizational marketing and communications. She established an experience framework and five domains of experience, including clinical, human, environmental, brand and digital, to define the organization’s 10-year vision of differentiating on experience. She recently established an experience council to enhance the system culture through education and expertise, with the goal of becoming the governance structure for all experience-driven projects. Ms. Shay brings nearly 25 years of leadership experience, with a proven track record of success leading national and global public health campaigns and marketing initiatives. Before joining Children’s Minnesota, she served in leadership roles at Abbott Labs, leading professional education, marketing, communications and scientific congress strategy. She also served as a journalist and team leader for over 10 years at Associated Press and Baltimore Sun.
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 human resources to enhance the experience of team members and employed and affiliated physicians at Ochsner Health, as well as all patients. Previously, she served as the system’s assistant vice president of patient experience and director of market planning.
Kimberly Sweeney, BSN, RN. Vice President of Patient Care Experience at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center (Buffalo, N.Y.). Ms. Sweeney heads the patient care experience team at Roswell Park, helping the system’s 50,000-plus patients and their loved ones navigate through a variety of services spanning medical, spiritual, mental, social and survivorship care. She created and now leads the cancer center’s concierge services, including medical international concierge resources. She oversees patient access, patient advocates, volunteer services, pediatric and young adult diversionary programs, the resource center, the “Cancer Coach” program and the “Elevate Salon.” Ms. Sweeney began her career in nursing 27 years ago as an ICU nurse at Roswell Park. 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. Today, she helps patients and families access care and services through a wide range of initiatives, a salon that provided nearly 2,000 wigs and head coverings to patients last year, and a resource center for patients and community members that hosts 3,600 visits each year. Ms. Sweeney brings a unique perspective to her role, as both a longtime nurse and as primary caregiver for a loved one who faced cancer twice.
Sara Toomey, MD. CXO, Chief Safety and Quality Officer, and Senior Vice President of Patient Safety and Quality at Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Toomey has successfully integrated patient experience, quality and safety into a unified strategy that advances both clinical excellence and organizational culture at Boston Children’s Hospital. As an active hospitalist, she brings firsthand clinical insight to every decision, ensuring that strategy is grounded in the realities of patient care and reflecting the principles of the “Quintuple Aim.” Under her guidance, Boston Children’s has strengthened its approach to experience measurement, implemented data-driven improvement initiatives, and fostered a culture in which feedback from patients, families and staff directly informs operational and clinical decisions. Dr. Toomey also serves as director and principal investigator of the center of excellence for pediatric quality measurement in the division of general pediatrics, where she has led the development and validation of nationally recognized pediatric quality measures that directly influence standards used across the country. Her commitment to organizational culture and staff engagement has helped cultivate a culture of psychological safety, accountability and continuous improvement that strengthens workforce resilience while directly improving patient care. In addition to her hospital leadership, she serves as an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
Julie Spencer Washington. Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing, Communications and Customer Experience Officer at Trinity Health (Livonia, Mich.). Ms. Washington provides systemwide leadership for marketing, communications, customer experience and philanthropy at Trinity Health. She is responsible for all aspects of marketing and communications functions, including national brand and reputation management, and her oversight of customer experience encompasses end-to-end design of a personalized journey that fosters trust and long-term loyalty. Ms. Washington also leads the organization’s foundations, aligning philanthropic efforts with strategic priorities to help sustain and advance Trinity Health’s mission. Prior to joining Trinity Health, she served as a chief marketing officer in the retail industry, driving revenue growth and profitability, expanding global and e-commerce distribution and launching award-winning brand campaigns. She serves on the board of the Association of National Advertisers and the advisory board of Velvet Suite.
Lesley Wilson. CXO 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 system’s 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.
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