As we come to the end of another year, the changes and challenges of 2025 could yield opportunities for patient experience work in 2026.
At the start of this year, we anticipated the launch of a new HCAHPS survey nationally. The survey has now been in the field for 12 months. While in-depth studies of the results and their meaning still remain to be done, some patterns are emerging.
First, CMS has allowed electronic administration of the official survey for the first time. This is a change that has been sought for quite a while. Response rates for the paper survey were declining year over year, and patient voice and input was being lost. While no data on this change has been released yet nationally, it does appear that this expansion of survey modes is resulting in better response rates. This is a welcome change, and the progression from paper to email is positive. That progression needs to continue in the future with the addition of text surveys to further bring the HCAHPS survey program into alignment with consumer expectations.
The new HCAHPS survey also added some important new domains. These include questions on post-hospitalization symptom management, restfulness during the hospital stay, a sharpened focus on hospital environment, and perhaps most significantly, questions about team care. In the previous HCAHPS survey, there were specific domains on the quality of physician and nurse communication. These domains remain. However, there is now an added domain on how team members come together to coordinate care. This has long been a critical element of the patient experience. Patients and family members — and often our own healthcare experiences — tell us that understanding the total plan of care can be a challenge. Again, while no formal studies are yet available, there is a clear signal emerging from the data for this new domain. When our survey vendors analyze the survey domains that are most correlated to the patient’s overall rating of their care, the new Team Communication domain has shot right to the top of the priority list. In other words, strengthening communication across the healthcare team is essential to improve the patient experience. Coordination of care in hospitals is a tougher issue than it may seem on the surface, but having national data to help focus effort and attention on this core issue is a positive development.
Overall, 2026 should bring new insight into the impact of both the new survey questions and modes. We hope to learn if the addition of the electronic mode is really broadening the voices we are hearing from, and learn more about patient and family needs and priorities through data from the new sections of the survey. We also hope to understand how the addition of new items is impacting patients’ perception of the more familiar items on the survey. The new survey offers the most significant opportunity to sharpen and transform patient experience improvement work since the HCAHPS survey was first introduced in 2008.
Another trend in patient experience that accelerated in 2025 and is likely to continue in 2026 is a deeper focus on consumer experience and on the total healthcare journey. The traditional focus on patient experience homes in on actual episodes of care — the experience in a hospital bed, exam room, emergency department or procedural suite. Focusing on consumer experience acknowledges that there is a “before and after” for every one of those experiences. This includes searching for physicians, obtaining appointments, asking questions of our providers and completing other transactions like paying a bill. It should now be common wisdom that truly impacting patient experience must encompass these interactions and transactions. We must structure our improvement efforts to not only enhance compassion but also improve convenience. Nationally, this dynamic is impacting both structure and strategy in healthcare organizations. CXO roles are evolving to address both patient and consumer experience. Experience leaders are partnering more closely than ever with their IT and marketing colleagues. This reflects an appropriate broadening of both focus and effort to truly address the expectations of patients in the current healthcare marketplace.
Patient experience leaders, like many others in the healthcare industry, are also racing to harness the potential of artificial intelligence while also ensuring that its use remains aligned with our mission. In the patient experience realm, AI is impacting everything from our direct surveying programs to how we collect and understand unstructured feedback, to how we consolidate and communicate information to each other and to patients and families. There is also potential to optimize the workflow at the bedside and alleviate burnout and production pressure, which can create space for deeper human interactions. This is something both our patients and caregivers crave. In 2026, patient experience leaders will have to remain deeply embedded in conversations about technology and AI. We have important perspectives to offer and our patient experience improvement strategies must be integrated into our approaches to leveraging AI.
A final dynamic of 2025 that will continue to unfold in 2026 is the impact of massive funding cuts looming in healthcare reimbursement. The passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill” in 2025 will bring the steepest cuts to Medicaid seen in a generation. I think any patient experience leader would agree that this brings a concern about the availability of critical healthcare services for the most vulnerable patients. There is nothing more fundamental to the patient experience than the ability to get services when they are needed. This foundational right will be at risk for many, and it is a concern we all share. Downstream, this also brings a challenge for patient experience programs themselves. As hospitals understandably adjust their budgets to meet reduced funding, patient experience programs come under scrutiny once again. While every part of the healthcare enterprise should strive to become ever more efficient, I hope that patient experience programs and expertise will not be disproportionately impacted by budget cuts. There are already some troubling signs of this nationally. This is a trend that will undoubtedly be monitored through the coming year.
Every year brings its challenges and opportunities. With every new year, we have a new mountain to climb. And, as 2026 approaches, the world of patient experience will have its own list of things to watch, things to understand more deeply and things to take on to make the experience better for everyone we serve.
