Patients aren’t waiting for the clinical encounter anymore. They’re using AI to research conditions, interpret results, and form opinions before they ever enter the system. In this session, patient leaders share what this shift looks like on the ground, and what it demands from clinicians and healthcare organizations to ensure trust, safety, and better outcomes.
Home
Ten Years. One Community.
A Decade Advancing the Patient Experience Together
Join the community shaping how healthcare listens, connects, and delivers care.
The 10th Annual Patient Experience Symposium marks an important milestone: ten years of shared learning, candid dialogue, and practical innovation. What began as a focused conversation has grown into a trusted national forum of leaders committed to elevating the human experience at the center of care.
Early Booking Incentive
Special Offer for First 50 to Register
Early Bird Savings and Lock In $279/Night in Boston!
The first fifty attendees who register for the conference and book their hotel stay at the host hotel, The Colonnade, within the official group block by May 15, 2026, will receive a rebate of $100 off for each night stayed, for up to three nights (maximum savings of $300 beyond the early bird savings). The official group rate at The Colonnade is available for up to three nights before or after the conference dates, should you wish to extend your stay in Boston.
The AI Patient Has Arrived. Are You Ready?
Call for Submissions
Rapid-Fire Sessions: 6-Minute to Accelerate Change
In this dynamic Rapid-Fire Session, six innovative presenters will take the stage to deliver high-impact, 6-minute presentations, each offering fresh insights on the key forces shaping the future of experience. Designed to surface diverse perspectives in a fast-moving format, these sessions bring together leaders from across healthcare to share bold ideas.
Accepted presenters will receive a 25% registration discount.
Trusted for a Reason
“Powerful sessions on kindness, trust, humility, and what truly matters to patients. I’m bringing these insights directly back to the nursing teams I lead to elevate our patient experience.”
“I left with actionable strategies I could implement right away to improve the patient experience.”
“A rare balance of lived experience and measurable action. Truly impactful.”
“As a healthcare leader, I appreciated that sponsors were integrated into the conference rather than separated in a vendor hall. It fostered meaningful discussions and more strategic partnerships.”
From Personal Loss to Purpose-Driven Change
Why Leaders Keep Coming Back
- 1
Technology and Innovation
Harness the power of technology and innovation to streamline processes, improve access to care, and enhance the overall patient experience - 2
Equity and Inclusion
Promote health equity and inclusion to enable access, enhance outcomes, and uphold the dignity and rights of all persons in the healthcare ecosystem - 3
Team Well-being and Engagement
Prioritize staff and clinician well-being while nurturing team behaviors around communication and coordination to enhance patient experience - 4
Value-Based Care and Measurement
Define and measure “value” by focusing on the health and experience outcomes that matter most to patients, while optimizing clinical outcomes, reducing errors, managing costs, and fostering a culture of safety and excellence - 5
Communication and Trust
Cultivate empathy and strengthen communication skills to build trust, rapport, and meaningful connections among patients, families, and healthcare teams
Agenda
Tuesday, October 7
Monday, September 28
- 8:30 am - 11:30 am
Pre-Conference Workshops
Jumpstart your experience with high-impact pre-conference workshops built to deliver actionable insights and set the stage for the days ahead.
- 12:15 pm - 12:30 pm
Welcoming Remarks
- 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
PANEL The New Patient Experience is Happening Without You. Now What?
How patients are shaping care on their own terms with AI and what health systems must do to keep upMillions of patients and caregivers are no longer waiting for the clinical encounter. With access challenges, shorter visits, rising costs and quality and safety concerns shaping every encounter, patients now have AI-powered tools at their fingertips. Patients are interpreting lab results, researching conditions, seeking second opinions, and preparing for visits before ever stepping into the system. The result is a new kind of patient, informed, proactive, and increasingly confident in their own role in care.
This provocative session brings patient leaders forward to share what this AI-enabled reality feels like on the ground and why it is fundamentally reshaping trust, roles, and expectations between patients, clinicians, health care leaders and payers. As intelligence becomes more accessible, the balance of knowledge is shifting, and with it, the dynamics of the care relationship across the eco-system.
Explore how this transformation challenges traditional care models while creating a rare opportunity to recognize patient agency, strengthen relationships, improve outcomes, and redesign incentives around a more informed and engaged patient. From AI-assisted decision making to new expectations around transparency and communication, this session will surface the tensions, and the practical strategies leaders must embrace now.
Join us to prepare for the AI-enabled patient, the necessary culture shift and actions leaders must take to ensure safe, quality, equitable care for everyone.
- Examine how AI-enabled patients and caregivers are navigating the care journey independently and the resulting outcomes, expectations, trust, and decision making
- Identify practical strategies for clinicians and leaders to partner with patients using AI-informed insights
- Evaluate implications for care delivery, experience measurement, and policy incentives as AI reshapes the care model to achieve the outcomes that matter to patients
- 1:30 pm - 1:45 pm
Facilitated Roundtable Discussions
As a unique element of the symposium, delegates will engage in interactive roundtable discussions. A “PX Host” will guide each roundtable group to enable meaningful exchanges. Attendees will form connections, exchange ideas, and share goals for attending the symposium.
- 1:50 pm - 2:30 pmChoose From Two Concurrent Tracks:
- 1:50 pm - 2:30 pm
TRACK A From Benefits to Behavior
Redesigning Employer Health for Better Patient Experience and OutcomesPANEL
Employer-sponsored healthcare isn’t short on data, programs, or point solutions, yet costs keep rising and outcomes remain uneven. The issue is not access to tools. It is misaligned incentives and a lack of execution where it matters most: at the point of care and in patient behavior.
This session tackles a more practical question: how can employer-sponsored plans design models that actually change provider and patient behavior while improving the employee experience? Because experience is not a byproduct, it is a lever. When done right, it drives better outcomes, reduces avoidable utilization, and improves return on healthcare spend.
Panelists will share how leading employers are moving beyond static benefits toward dynamic, outcome-aligned models. These approaches embed incentives directly into care delivery and patient engagement, turning data into action within real workflows. The discussion will also explore how conversational AI and AI-enabled engagement are enabling continuous, context-aware interactions that improve access, build trust, and drive adherence at scale.
You will hear how organizations are shifting from episodic touchpoints to ongoing, personalized relationships, supported by intelligent outreach and real-time guidance. The session will also examine how provider incentives can be restructured to reward sustained outcomes, not just activity.
Grounded in real-world examples, this session will highlight what it takes to align financial incentives, clinical decision-making, and patient engagement into a coordinated, execution-focused model that delivers measurable impact on cost, quality, and experience. Panelists will also share candid lessons on what has and has not worked in employer settings.
- Design Incentives That Drive Behavior Change
Understand how employer-sponsored plans can structure incentives that influence both provider decision-making and patient behavior, shifting from episodic care to longitudinal outcome accountability. - Elevate Patient Experience Through Intelligent Engagement
Explore how conversational AI and context-driven, continuous engagement models can improve access, navigation, and adherence, creating a more seamless and personalized patient experience. - Operationalize Data at the Point of Care and Engagement
Understand how data, predictive analytics, and AI-enabled outreach must be integrated into real-time workflows to translate insight into action for employees and care teams, enabling scalable impact without increasing operating cost.
- Design Incentives That Drive Behavior Change
- 1:50 pm - 2:30 pm
TRACK B Rapid-Fire Sessions
Bold Ideas. Real Impact.
In this fast-paced Rapid-Fire Session, six forward-thinking presenters will each deliver a focused 6-minute talk, sharing practical ideas, fresh perspectives, and innovative strategies shaping the future of healthcare experience.
Designed to surface bold thinking and real-world solutions, this session will explore key issues across patient experience, workforce engagement, access, innovation, and care delivery transformation. Each speaker will offer a concise, high-impact perspective, giving attendees a broad view of what is working now and what is next.
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- 2:30 pm - 3:00 pm
Networking Break in Sponsor Showcase
- 3:00 pm - 3:30 pmChoose From Two Concurrent Tracks:
- 3:00 pm - 3:30 pm
TRACK A Pursuing 100,000 Extraordinary Experiences through a Human Centered and Partnered Strategy
Extraordinary healthcare requires a shift from viewing patients as data points to treating them as essential members of the care team. In this session, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital reveals a strategic plan designed to achieve 100,000 more “Extraordinary Experiences” by FY28. Dr. Samuel Hanke will demonstrate how a human-centered framework, built on being Playful, Personal, Partnered, and Profound, traditional clinical interactions into defining moments.
- Apply a human-centered framework (Playful, Personal, Partnered, Profound) to elevate everyday clinical interactions
- Identify practical strategies to engage patients and families as active partners in care delivery
- Translate experience goals into measurable actions that drive “extraordinary” outcomes across the organization
- 3:00 pm - 3:30 pm
TRACK B Reimagining Primary Care
A Hybrid, Direct-Contracted Model for Health Systems and EmployersHigh-performing health systems are built on primary care. In the U.S., however, less than 5% of healthcare dollars are allocated to primary care, far below what peer nations spend. Leading institutions have warned that primary care in the US is in crisis, even as decades of research confirm it drives better health outcomes, lower costs, and overall improved community health and wellness.
This session introduces Rezilient Health’s novel, hybrid primary care model, delivered through direct contracting and built to partner with health systems, not compete with them. Attendees will learn how this scalable, tech-enabled approach creates a seamless, integrated, primary-care-first solution that improves access, clinical outcomes and patient experience, while lowering costs. This model, as participants will discover, strengthens local care infrastructure, and creates a sustainable path forward for employers, hospitals, and the communities they serve.
- Understand how a hybrid, provider-led, medic-enabled, concierge-like primary care model improves access, patient experience, and clinical outcomes through technology and operational design.
- Examine how a primary-care-first strategy delivered through direct contracting benefits hospitals, employers, and patients without fragmenting care.
- Explore the direct care contracting movement, including its economic advantages, implementation considerations, and why employers and municipalities are increasingly adopting this approach.
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- 3:35 pm - 4:05 pmChoose From Two Concurrent Tracks:
- 3:35 pm - 4:05 pm
TRACK A The New Front Door
Rethinking Patient and Member Communication at ScaleWhat if accessing health care felt as easy as sending a text?
Billions of people use messaging every day, from your teenage niece to your grandmother. Yet many health care experiences still start with friction: long hold times, clunky portals, forgotten passwords. It’s no surprise patients drop off before they ever get the care they need.
Your front door matters more than ever. The question is, are you opening it or putting obstacles in the way?
In this can’t-miss session, Josh Weiner shares how leading organizations are rethinking the front door with next-generation messaging like Rich Communication Services (RCS). By meeting patients where they already are, health systems and payers can turn everyday interactions into seamless, trusted experiences that drive real engagement.
If you’re responsible for Patient, Member, or Consumer Experience (PX, MX, CX), this session will challenge your assumptions and show what’s possible when communication finally catches up to consumer expectations.
- Turn your “front door” into a competitive advantage
- Engage patients in the channels they already trust and use daily
- Translate better experiences into stronger relationships and ROI
- See how messaging-first strategies can improve access, increase satisfaction, and deliver measurable business impact at scale
- 3:35 pm - 4:05 pm
TRACK B Beyond the Test Result
Turning Respiratory Diagnostics into Better Conversations and Shared DecisionsAdvances in molecular diagnostics are transforming how respiratory infections are detected and treated, but test results alone do not improve care. How clinicians communicate those results and involve patients in decisions plays a critical role in trust, satisfaction, and appropriate antibiotic use.
In this session, Dr. Steven Goldberg will explore how molecular diagnostic insights, including PCR and multiplex testing, can be integrated into shared decision-making to support more collaborative, patient-centered respiratory care. Drawing on peer-reviewed research and real-world clinical experience, he will share practical communication strategies that help patients understand test results, participate in treatment decisions, and align care with their preferences and values. Delegates will leave with actionable approaches to strengthen shared decision-making and enhance the patient experience in everyday respiratory care, particularly in ambulatory and urgent care settings.
- Explain how molecular diagnostics (e.g., PCR testing) inform clinical decisions and support patient-centered respiratory care.
- Apply shared decision-making principles to incorporate diagnostic results into collaborative treatment planning.
- Use communication strategies that translate complex diagnostic information into clear guidance while promoting responsible antibiotic use and patient safety.
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- 4:10 pm - 4:40 pm
Patient Experience-Lessons from the Flight Deck
Taxi, Take-Off, Flight Plans & LandingEvery survey of the top concerns of “C-Suite” members in healthcare lists patient experience at the top. Everyone knows that it is important, but everyone is struggling with why and how to get there. One of the most appropriate and powerful metaphors comes from the speaker’s experience of having served on naval aircraft carriers and the lessons which can be learned from how naval and Marine aviation serves important lessons for patient experience. Thom Mayer details how patient experience follows a “Taxi, Take-Off, Flight Plans, and Landings” sequence, just as aviators do. Concrete examples of applying this are provided.
- Articulate a clear, operational definition of patient experience that leaders can act on immediately
- Establish the strategic “why” behind patient experience as a prerequisite for sustainable execution
- Apply the “Taxi, Take-Off, Flight Plans, and Landings” framework to diagnose and improve the patient journey
- Translate aviation-based principles into practical, real-world actions that measurably improve patient care
- 4:40 pm - 5:20 pm
The Invisible Patient in the Room
Over 40% of Adults Are Unpaid Caregivers. In Your Waiting Room, the Number's Probably Higher.Here’s the plot twist hiding in your waiting room: your patients are likely caregivers too. Sicker adults tend to be older. Older adults are more likely to be caring for someone. But you know what? The honor (and impact) of being a caregiver doesn’t discriminate – it hits every age, every demographic, every stereotype we tend to ignore. The math isn’t complicated, but the implications are.
The patient in Bed 4 managing her own diabetes is also managing her mother’s dementia. The guy prepping for knee surgery is the sole support for a spouse with MS. And when 1 in 3 Archangels is in the red (the highest level of intensity), the ripple effects hit adherence, recovery, and readmissions in ways your current data isn’t capturing. It’s the vital sign you’re not measuring. Yet.
Alexandra Drane, co-founder and CEO of ARCHANGELS, will share what happens to outcomes when we are enabled to not just SEE the full human, but support them (in data driven ways).
- Examine ARCHANGELS data on what it means to be “in the red”: the mental health impacts of caregiver intensity, its connection to readmission rates, and what gets caregivers back to being ‘in the clear’ (spoiler alert: 70% of health system employees are typically also serving as unpaid caregivers, making them ‘double-duties’)
- Apply a practical framework for integrating caregiver identification and support into existing patient experience, care navigation, and discharge workflows
- Recognize the business case for caregiver-inclusive care: what the data shows about cost, readmissions, and workforce strain when Archangels are supported, and when they’re not
- Recognize the intensity in your OWN life… think of this session as respite for you, as well
- 5:20 pm - 6:30 pm
Opening Night Reception in Sponsor Showcase
Tuesday, September 29
- 8:15 am - 8:30 am
Chairperson’s Opening Remarks
- 8:30 am - 9:00 am
Building a Workforce to Address the Health Needs of Those Who Carry an Unequal Burden of Disease
- 9:00 am - 9:45 am
PANEL Keep Calm & Care On
Patient Experience in the Real WorldHealthcare has always been complex, but today it can feel like the industry is balancing compassion, compliance, and chaos all at once. This candid and energizing panel brings together Patient Experience Leaders from diverse care environments, including urban academic systems, community hospitals, and rural health organizations, to discuss what it really takes to deliver exceptional patient experiences when pressures on healthcare have never been greater.
Together, these leaders will tackle the realities many teams face today: maintaining a culture of hospitality and respect amid rising workplace violence; supporting caregivers as global events and societal tensions impact morale; navigating the presence of outside authorities in care environments; preparing for ongoing regulatory scrutiny; responding to shifting community expectations and evolving public trust; and sustaining empathy and human connection while many organizations operate under significant financial strain.
While the challenges are real, the tone of this conversation will be anything but heavy. Through honesty, humor, and practical wisdom from leaders living this work every day, the panel will foster authentic dialogue and shared learning.
This open, no-script conversation will invite audience participation and explore how leaders protect compassion, support caregivers, and keep the heart of healthcare beating during turbulent times.
- Identify key external and internal pressures impacting patient experience, including workforce challenges, safety concerns, regulatory scrutiny, and evolving community expectations.
- Explore leadership strategies for supporting caregivers and sustaining a culture of empathy, hospitality, and respect during times of organizational and societal stress.
- Examine practical approaches used by healthcare organizations to maintain trust, strengthen patient engagement, and deliver meaningful experiences despite financial and operational constraints.
- 9:45 am - 10:00 am
Facilitated Roundtable Discussions
As a unique element of the symposium, delegates will engage in interactive roundtable discussions. A “PX Host” will guide each roundtable group to enable meaningful exchanges. Attendees will form connections, exchange ideas, and share goals for attending the symposium.
- 10:00 am - 10:30 am
Networking Break in Sponsor Showcase
- 11:15 am - 11:50 amChoose From Two Concurrent Tracks:
- 11:15 am - 11:50 am
TRACK A High-Yield Patient Experience Solutions: The Top 10!
Delivering an excellent patient experience is directly tied to improving care quality, safety, outcomes, and the well-being of the healthcare workforce. Yet many organizations still struggle to turn this understanding into meaningful, lasting change.
This practical and engaging session will explore the connection between patient experience, clinical excellence, and caregiver burnout, and how progress in one area can positively impact the others. Drawing from real-world examples and proven research, we will highlight the factors that shape the patient experience across the care journey.
The focus will be on action. Using an interactive Top 10 format, attendees will leave with clear, evidence-based strategies that can be applied immediately to improve both patient and staff experience. Whether you are leading system-wide initiatives or working on the front lines, this session will provide practical tools to create a more connected, supportive, and effective care environment.
- Appreciate the inexorable links between high quality patient care, excellent patient experience, and improved staff satisfaction.
- Understand the most important causative factors contributing to patient and staff experience.
- Identify high-yield, systems-based interventions aimed at improving patient and staff experience in their own EDs.
- 11:15 am - 11:50 am
TRACK B Rethinking Healthcare Experience Through a Consumer Lens
What Leaders Can Learn from Netflix, Nordstrom, and NikeHealthcare keeps looking inward for answers. Meanwhile, the industries that have mastered loyalty, personalization, and trust are operating on an entirely different playbook. In this session, Kathleen Ellmore pulls that playbook into healthcare and makes it usable. Drawing on insights from more than a billion consumer interactions, along with experience at some of the largest consumer companies in the world, she breaks down what actually drives behavior and why most healthcare “experience strategies” fall short. Because experience is not a score. It is behavior.
It is how patients and members respond to outreach, navigate friction, recover from confusion, and decide whether to trust you again. This session introduces a practical model for redesigning those moments using consumer-grade behavioral science, evidence-based communication, and real-time data. Not theory. Execution.
If healthcare wants loyalty, it must earn it the way other industries already do.
- Design interactions that guide behavior, not just measure it
- Reduce friction across the patient and member journey without adding complexity
- Apply consumer-tested strategies to clinical, payer, and care delivery environments
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- 11:55 am - 12:40 pmChoose From Two Concurrent Tracks:
- 11:55 am - 12:40 pm
TRACK B Empathic Leadership and Culture Change
The New Drivers of Patient Experience ExcellencePANEL
Healthcare organizations are under growing pressure from workforce burnout, staffing shortages, rising patient expectations, technology overload, and increasing complexity across care delivery. In this timely panel discussion, leaders from across Mass General Brigham will explore why empathic leadership and culture transformation have become critical drivers of both workforce well-being and patient experience.
Moderated by empathy researcher Helen Riess, this panel brings together senior clinical, quality, patient experience, and operational leaders from Mass General Brigham to share practical lessons and measurable strategies for leading through today’s healthcare challenges. Attendees will leave with actionable insights to strengthen leadership communication, supporting clinical teams, and creating more sustainable cultures that improve both the workforce and patient experience.
- Strengthen organizational resilience, trust, retention, and patient outcomes through empathic leadership
- Address burnout, communication breakdowns, workforce fatigue, and technology burden across care environments
- Implement culture change strategies drawn from real-world frontline experience and operational leadership
- Connect patient experience, quality, safety, and workforce well-being as part of a unified organizational strategy
- Build accountable, compassionate, and engaged cultures during periods of ongoing stress and transformation
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- 12:40 pm - 2:10 pm
Lunch in Sponsor Showcase
- 2:10 pm - 2:45 pmChoose From Two Concurrent Tracks:
- 2:10 pm - 2:45 pm
TRACK A Reimagining Prevention
A Scalable Model Powered by Opioid Settlement FundingHospitals are under growing pressure to improve patient outcomes while addressing workforce strain and opioid risk. This session introduces the Life Care Specialist (LCS) model, a scalable, patient-centered solution funded through opioid settlement dollars. By integrating patient education, whole-person support, and post-discharge connection to care, the LCS closes high-risk care gaps, reduces unnecessary opioid exposure, and strengthens clinical team capacity. Attendees will leave with a clear framework for deploying settlement funds into measurable, sustainable impact.
- Learn how the LCS model fits into existing clinical workflows to reduce strain on staff and improve pain support for patients.
- Target critical transition points where patients fall through the cracks and activate the LCS to improve continuity and outcomes.
- Maximize LCS impact in both urban and rural settings with tailored strategies that address distinct operational realities.
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- 2:50 pm - 3:25 pmChoose From Two Concurrent Tracks:
- 2:40 pm - 3:15 pm
TRACK A Centering Lived Experience to Advance Equity
Insights from Black Women with EndometriosisBlack women with endometriosis face significant inequities in care, including delayed diagnosis, dismissal of symptoms, and gaps in provider knowledge. They also report disparities experiences of care, including not being listened to, lack of respect and empathy, poor communication about treatment options and side effects, and limited opportunities to participate in decision-making about their care. Funded by PCORI, MHQP in partnership with the Endometriosis Association, convened Black women, clinicians, researchers, and other stakeholders to co-develop a patient-centered research roadmap to advance research and improve care. This session will highlight both the engagement approach and the lived experiences that shaped the findings. Participants will gain insight into structural and interpersonal barriers, including medical gaslighting, access challenges, and lack of shared decision-making, as well as the ways care experiences directly impact quality of life and engagement with the healthcare system. Participants will also learn about community-driven priorities to advance more equitable, patient-centered endometriosis care.
- Explain MHQP’s patient-centered engagement approach, including multi-stakeholder convenings with Black women, clinicians, and other partners to inform research priorities
- Describe key barriers Black women with endometriosis face in care, including delays in diagnosis, dismissal of symptoms, and gaps in provider knowledge and training, as well as inequities in experiences of care such as poor patient-provider communication, lack of respect, and limited shared decision-making
- Share community-prioritized strategies to improve care, including enhanced provider education, standardized protocols, and multidisciplinary, individualized care models
- 2:50 pm - 3:25 pm
TRACK B Joy, Learning, and Trust
Building Trust One Patient Story at a TimePatients often say what matters most in a single sentence. Those moments can carry more weight than any dashboard. This session explores a simple but powerful practice: selecting one meaningful patient comment each month for every department and pairing it with a clear teachable moment that reinforces the behavior or process behind an exceptional experience. What started as a way to share encouragement has become a practical approach to strengthening high reliability, reinforcing just culture, and supporting clinician wellbeing.
You will also hear how a Provider Council Physician Assistant brought this to life by hand delivering patient comments directly to providers, creating authentic connection in a way that feels personal and meaningful. At its core, this session focuses on building trust. Trust with patients. Trust with clinicians. Trust within teams working to deliver excellent care in a complex and imperfect system.
- Turn patient comments into practical, repeatable “micro-lessons” that improve care experiences in real time
- Implement a simple monthly process to share meaningful feedback with clinical leaders and frontline teams
- Strengthen high reliability by reinforcing consistent, person-centered behaviors across teams
- Enhance clinician engagement and wellbeing by making patient gratitude visible, personal, and actionable
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- 3:25 pm - 3:45 pm
Networking Break in Sponsor Showcase
- 3:45 pm - 4:35 pm
PANEL Engagement and Measurement to Confidence and Outcomes
Rebuilding Trust Across the Care ContinuumHealth plan member trust is eroding, reflected in declining CAHPS scores. Rising administrative complexity, fragmented communication, surprise bills, and inconsistent follow-through across the care continuum have created an experience gap that patients feel at every touchpoint. Improving trust requires more than lifting a single survey metric; it demands coordinated, cross-sector action that aligns hospital systems, health plans, and community partners around a seamless experience.
This panel brings together hospital leaders and payer executives to explore how trust is built (or broken) across the care journey, from access and discharge to billing and follow-up. Panelists will share practical strategies for improving CAHPS performance while strengthening long-term trust, particularly in high-risk and vulnerable populations.
- Identify the key drivers of trust reflected in CAHPS and related experience measures
- Understand how payer and provider interactions influence patient perceptions
- Implement cross-organizational approaches to reduce friction in transitions of care
- Align operational, communication, and experience strategies to drive measurable improvement
- 4:35 pm - 5:20 pm
Project Pivot
Measuring What Matters Most to PatientsAs healthcare organizations face growing pressure to improve safety, trust, equity, and patient-centered care, many leaders are asking an important question: Are we measuring the experiences and outcomes that truly matter to patients? Project PIVOT, a national patient-led initiative connected to broader conversations around CMS patient safety and quality measurement, seeks to reframe how healthcare systems capture and act on the patient voice. The initiative focuses on integrating patient-reported experiences and outcomes into efforts focused on safety, diagnostic accuracy, transparency, and equity across healthcare.
In this candid fireside chat, patient safety advocate Sue Sheridan joins healthcare leaders Michelle Schreiber and Laura Adams for a conversation about the future of patient-centered measurement. Moderated by Josh Berlin, the conversation will explore how elevating the patient voice can strengthen trust, improve transparency, and more meaningfully inform quality and safety strategies. Attendees will gain insight into how initiatives like Project PIVOT could influence future healthcare quality measures, patient experience strategy, reimbursement models, and organizational accountability.
- Understand the goals and emerging impact of Project PIVOT on patient-centered quality measurement
- Explore how patient-reported experiences can improve safety, trust, and diagnostic accuracy
- Discuss current CMS and industry efforts to advance more patient-centered measurement frameworks
- Identify practical ways to better integrate the patient voice into organizational quality, safety, and patient experience initiatives
- Examine how transparency, feedback, and lived experience data are reshaping accountability and quality improvement
Wednesday, September 30
- 8:30 am - 9:10 am
Truth or Consequences
What Happens When Healthcare Doesn’t Tell the TruthAfter a routine hip replacement leaves his mother in a coma with permanent brain damage, filmmaker Steve Burrows begins documenting a decade-long journey through the hidden realities of the American healthcare system.
What starts as a son’s video diary becomes a powerful investigation into medical harm, institutional silence, and the urgent need for transparency when things go wrong in healthcare.
In this compelling presentation, Burrows, writer and director of the award-winning HBO documentary Bleed Out, shares the deeply personal story behind the film and the systemic failures it exposes. Through raw footage, firsthand experience, and hard-won insights, he challenges healthcare leaders to confront uncomfortable truths about accountability, communication, and the role patients and families must play in safeguarding care.
This session is both a cautionary tale and a call to action for healthcare leaders committed to building a culture where honesty, transparency, and patient partnership are non-negotiable.
- Recognize the essential role of patients and families as partners in the patient experience.
- Examine the core pillars of patient safety culture including transparency, accountability, and open communication when harm occurs.
- Understand the real-world consequences of institutional silence and the impact that lack of transparency can have on patients, families, and public trust in healthcare.
- 9:10 am - 9:45 am
Redefining Access
How Virtual Care, AI, and New Delivery Models Are Transforming the Patient ExperienceHealthcare access is being redefined in real time. From virtual primary care and remote patient monitoring to hospital-at-home and AI-enabled care navigation, health systems are rapidly moving beyond traditional models to meet patients where they are. But improving access is not just about convenience. It is increasingly tied to patient trust, engagement, outcomes, and long-term experience.
In this forward-looking session, Robert Fields will explore how technology-enabled care delivery models are reshaping the future of healthcare experience. Drawing from his leadership across one of the nation’s leading integrated health systems, Dr. Fields will discuss how organizations can leverage virtual care, digital engagement, AI, and home-based models to improve access while maintaining quality, safety, and human connection.
Attendees will gain insight into emerging models including virtual primary care, remote patient monitoring, virtual cardiac rehabilitation, hospital at home, and the growing role of AI in care delivery and patient engagement.
- Examine how technology-enabled care models can improve access, engagement, and the overall patient experience
- Explore the evolving role of virtual primary care, remote patient monitoring, and home-based care delivery across the continuum
- Discuss how AI-driven tools and digital innovation may reshape patient navigation, communication, and care delivery in the years ahead
- Identify strategies health systems can use to balance innovation, quality, safety, and human connection while expanding access to care
- 9:45 am - 10:00 am
Networking Break in Sponsor Showcase
- 10:00 am - 10:35 am
Transforming Safety at Scale: Insights from the National Movement
- 11:20 am - 12:00 pm
CMS Priorities for Transparency, Digital Health, and Patient-Centered Care
Join Amy Gleason for an executive-level briefing on the latest advancements shaping CMS’s Health Tech Ecosystem and the future of digital healthcare delivery. This session will provide strategic updates on CMS priorities, implementation milestones, and progress advancing FHIR-based APIs, modern digital infrastructure, and scalable interoperability across the healthcare landscape.
Attendees will gain insight into how CMS is working to reduce administrative burden, improve data accessibility and exchange, and strengthen digital connectivity among patients, providers, payers, and technology developers. The session will also showcase real-world examples of ecosystem capabilities in action, highlighting practical use cases and the opportunities ahead for creating a more connected, efficient, and patient-centered healthcare experience, including:
- Network-enabled interoperability to streamline data exchange across care settings
- Kill the Clipboard workflows that reduce manual intake documentation
- Diabetes and obesity-focused digital health solutions leveraging interoperable data and care coordination
- Conversational AI applications that improve patient engagement, navigation, and clinician efficiency
This session offers a clear view into CMS’s strategic direction while demonstrating how the Health Tech Ecosystem is driving practical, patient-centered innovation and accelerating collaboration across federal agencies and industry partners.
- Describe the updated strategic objectives of the CMS Health Tech Ecosystem and identify key deliverables and milestones.
- Understand how CMS is advancing FHIR-based APIs and ecosystem-enabled networks.
- Recognize how Kill the Clipboard workflows reduce administrative burden and empower patients to be in control of their health information.
- Evaluate practical use cases in diabetes, obesity, and conversational AI powered by interoperable data.
- Identify opportunities for collaboration with CMS and ecosystem partners.
Workshops
Monday, September 28
Monday, September 28
- 8:30 am - 10:00 amChoose From Two Concurrent Workshops
- 8:30 am - 10:00 am
WORKSHOP A Building Loving Systems
Practical Leadership Tools to Transform Patient ExperiencePatient experience challenges are rarely the result of individual failure. More often, they are symptoms of system design. Communication breakdowns, inconsistent feedback, and unclear accountability structures create friction for staff and can erode patient trust.
This interactive workshop introduces three systems-based leadership approaches that leading organizations are using to strengthen culture and improve patient experience: Loving Communication, Loving Feedback, and Loving Accountability. Rather than asking people to simply try harder, the session focuses on how organizations can embed dignity, clarity, and accountability into workflows, governance, and daily operations.
Participants will leave with practical tools, useful language, and clear next steps they can implement within their teams and organizations. The workshop is designed to move beyond inspiration and into implementation, equipping leaders with actionable strategies to improve workforce stability, strengthen execution, and advance patient experience outcomes.
- Explain why patient experience outcomes are driven by system design, not individual effort alone
- Identify key elements of Loving Communication, Loving Feedback, and Loving Accountability systems
- Apply a structured framework to redesign one communication, feedback, or accountability process in their organization; and commit to a measurable 30-day implementation step
- 8:30 am - 10:00 am
WORKSHOP B Deep Dive into the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade
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- 10:00 am - 11:30 amChoose From Two Concurrent Workshops
- 10:00 am - 11:30 am
WORKSHOP C The Invisible Co-Author
Preserving Trust, Safety, and Human Connection in the Age of AIArtificial intelligence is already shaping the patient experience, embedded in triage, documentation, discharge, and communication tools. While AI may inform care, clinicians and leaders remain accountable for how that care is delivered and experienced.
This interactive workshop examines how AI is influencing patient interactions, where risks to empathy, accuracy, and equity can emerge, and how to respond in real time. Through interdisciplinary case scenarios, participants will identify where AI is at work and how it impacts trust and communication.
Conference participants will apply the AI Safety Pause™, a practical framework to evaluate AI-informed outputs, strengthen clinical judgment, and ensure care remains patient-centered and ethically grounded. Designed for clinical and operational leaders, this session delivers actionable strategies to preserve the human experience of care in an AI-enabled environment.
- Recognize where and how artificial intelligence influences the patient experience across clinical and operational settings
- Examine the impact of AI on trust, communication, and perceived quality of care
- Apply the AI Safety Pause™ to evaluate AI-informed outputs in real-time decision-making
- Identify risks such as bias, miscommunication, and overreliance that may negatively affect patient experience
- Implement strategies to maintain human connection, accountability, and patient-centered care in AI-supported environments
- 10:00 am - 11:30 am
Workshop D Building the Workforce Behind Better Patient Experience
Rural ResilienceIn rural healthcare, workforce challenges directly impact patient experience, trust, safety, and access to care. Staffing shortages, leadership gaps, and provider burnout continue to strain rural hospitals and health systems, making it increasingly difficult to meet the expectations of patients and communities.
This interactive pre-conference workshop, presented by the New England Rural Health Association (NERHA) and partners, explores innovative strategies to strengthen and sustain the rural healthcare workforce. Through practical case studies and collaborative discussion, attendees will examine how regional partnerships, leadership development programs, community health workers, and rural-focused training initiatives are helping organizations improve workforce stability while enhancing patient experience outcomes.
Workshop participants will leave with actionable ideas to build more resilient, community-centered care teams capable of improving trust, engagement, and care delivery across underserved populations.
Analyze the Correlation between Leadership and Experience: Identify how leadership gaps in rural health systems contribute to provider burnout and subsequent declines in patient satisfaction and safety.
- Examine how workforce shortages, burnout, and leadership gaps impact patient experience, trust, and safety in rural healthcare settings
- Explore collaborative workforce development models that strengthen recruitment, retention, and leadership pipelines across rural communities
- Identify strategies to improve patient trust and engagement through community-based care teams and lived-experience workforce models
- Develop practical approaches to building resilient, rural-ready healthcare teams that support both workforce well-being and patient-centered care
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Speakers
Speakers
Laura Adams
Senior Advisor
National Academy of Medicine
Laura L. Adams, Senior Advisor at the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), provides leadership for the NAM Digital Health and Evidence Mobilization portfolios of the Leadership Consortium. Her primary expertise is in digital health, biotech, and human-centered care. She serves on the boards of Boston-based T2 Biosystems and Translational Medicine Accelerator (TMA); and is a member of the Oversight Council for the Massachusetts Center for Health Information and Analysis. She is also an advisor for Inflammatix, a Burlingame, CA-based biotech company specializing in host immune response diagnostics. Previously, Laura was the founding President and CEO of the Rhode Island Quality Institute (RIQI), a statewide health information exchange.
Josh M. Berlin, JD
CEO
rule of three, LLC
Josh M. Berlin brings more than 25 years of experience serving clients and leading teams, most of which in healthcare advisory, bringing that expertise to rule of three, LLC as its CEO. He has been privileged to hold previous leadership roles at KPMG, IBM Watson Health, Dixon Hughes Goodman (now Forvis Mazars), and Citrin Cooperman. Both his current role and previous roles have presented opportunities to bring unconventional thinking to his clients, while supporting dynamic teams, across the full healthcare ecosystem (Providers, Plans, Employers, Governments, Advocacy, etc.). Currently, he serves on the Boards of vital.io, Validation Institute, the Population Health Management Journal, and HealthTrackRx.
Greg F. Burke, MD FACP
Chief Patient Experience Officer
Geisinger Health
Dr. Burke graduated from Jefferson Medical College (magna cum laude) in 1988 and completed an internal medicine residency and chief residency at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital prior to joining the Geisinger Clinic in 1992 as an associate in General Internal Medicine.
He has served in a number of leadership roles including Chief Patient Experience Officer for Geisinger Health since 2014 and Medical Director of the Geisinger Skilled Nursing Facility Program since 2018. He has won numerous awards for top performance in patient experience, including three times for the highest performance score for clinicians in the Geisinger Health system. He continues in clinical practice and has a special interest in medical professionalism and spirituality in medicine. Dr. Burke has a passion for improving the patient experience and feels expanding the principles of hospitality in healthcare is
Steve Burrows
Writer/Director/Fimmaker
HBO’s acclaimed documentary BLEED OUT
Steve Burrows is a comedic storyteller — a writer, director and performer who has been entertaining audiences in film, television, commercials and theatre for 25 years. In 2009, in a complete career 180°, Burrows dropped out of Show Business to take care of his mother, who had gone in for a routine partial hip replacement and came out in a coma with permanent brain damage. For real. The insane years that followed — fighting for his Mom's life and for medical and legal justice - became Burrows latest feature, the award-winning, critically acclaimed HBO documentary film: "Bleed Out." Currently, Burrows is working on several feature film and television projects. In honor of his Mom, he has also become a fierce patient safety activist.
Steve Burrows, ,
Hugo Campos
Patient Advocate
I grew up in Rio de Janeiro and moved to San Francisco in 1990, where I built a career in digital design and technology. My life took a different turn when I was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and received an implantable defibrillator.
That experience transformed me into a patient advocate. I’ve been honored by the Obama White House as a Champion of Change for Precision Medicine and now serve on the NIH All of Us Research Program, PCORI’s THRIVE Trial, and the advisory board of UCSF/UC Berkeley’s Computational Precision Health program.
What sets me apart is not just my advocacy, but how I live it. I use generative AI daily to manage my own health and my father’s care. My work sits at the intersection of personal experience, critical thinking, and the philosophy of patient autonomy.
Brian Carlson
Vice President of Patient Experience
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Brian currently serve as Vice President of Patient Experience for Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Brian joined Vanderbilt in 2007 as Administrator of the Vanderbilt Eye Institute. Prior to Vanderbilt he served as CEO/COO of a multi-specialty physician group practice in Western New York and started his professional career at Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation in Chicago.
In his current role, he is strategically and operationally responsible for institutional performance on service programming and metrics. Operationally he has direct oversight to Guest Services, Patient Relations, Service Consulting and Center for EMS Excellence. Strategically he advises on institutional patient experience goals and improvement, employee engagement, culture, and patient engagement programs, including on-line patient portal My Health at Vanderbilt.
Erin Carroll, BAS
High Reliability and Business Optimization Manager
South Shore Health
Erin Carroll is the Manager of High Reliability & Business Optimization at South Shore Health, bringing more than 10 years of experience in population health, quality improvement, and high reliability. She has extensive expertise partnering with Patient Experience vendors to develop and implement real-time survey programs, as well as creating dashboards that provide meaningful, actionable insights for clinical leaders. Erin established the monthly “Feel Good Friday” practice, sharing a meaningful patient comment with each department and translating it into a simple, repeatable teaching point. She focuses on building patient trust through collaboration with colleagues, promoting consistency, and supporting a fair, learning oriented culture for teams.
Richard Corder
Senior Principal
Outcomes Institute
Richard Corder is the Senior Principal at Outcomes Institute, a healthcare consultancy and collective committed to work that inspires and removes barriers. With a career that began as a restaurant busboy and evolved into executive leadership across hospitality and healthcare, Richard brings a personal, lived, and grounded perspective to the art and science of service, systems, and human connection.
Over the past three decades, he has become a trusted advisor to organizations and leaders seeking to improve performance, transform culture, and lead with purpose. Leaders who work with Richard see measurable gains in patient satisfaction, employee engagement, and leadership alignment – turning culture into a driver of safety, quality, and performance.
Grace Cordovano, PhD, BCPA
Founder
Enlightening Results
Dr. Grace Cordovano, PhD, BCPA, is an internationally recognized patient advocate and founder of Enlightening Results, a personalized advocacy firm specializing in oncology, rare, and catastrophic cases. For more than 25 years, she has helped patients and care partners navigate some of the most complex moments in healthcare—from survivorship to end-of-life planning—with empathy, clarity, and medically credible guidance. Widely known for “navigating the unnavigable,” Dr. Cordovano is a leading voice in patient rights, health equity, digital health, and the responsible use of AI in care navigation. She also co-founded Unblock Health, which empowers patients to access and correct their electronic health information. A board-certified patient advocate with a PhD in Biochemistry from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, she serves in national leadership roles across interoperability, techquit
Susan Deane, EdD, MSN, CNE, RN
Co-founder
Nurses for AI
Dr. Susan Deane is a nationally recognized nurse educator, consultant, and thought leader in artificial intelligence and technology integration in nursing education and practice. With more than 25 years in nursing education, she previously served as Dean and Professor of the School of Nursing at SUNY Delhi, where she led innovative academic-practice partnerships and advanced virtual and technology-enhanced learning initiatives.
Dr. Deane specializes in AI competency development, faculty preparation, curriculum innovation, and nurse leadership in AI governance. She holds an AI Educator Certification from Auburn University and San Diego State University and a post-master’s certificate in Healthcare Informatics. Her work focuses on ensuring artificial intelligence enhances clinical judgment, while promoting ethical integrity, equity, and human-centered care.
Dave deBronkart
Author and Patient Engagement Advocate
Dave deBronkart, known on the internet as e-Patient Dave, is the author of the highly rated Let Patients Help: A Patient Engagement Handbook and one of the world’s leading advocates for patient engagement. After beating stage IV kidney cancer in 2007 he became a blogger, health policy advisor and international keynote speaker. An accomplished speaker in his professional life before cancer, he is today the best-known spokesman for the patient engagement movement, attending over 650 conferences and policy meetings in 26 countries, including testifying in Washington for patient access to the medical record under Meaningful Use.
Alexandra Drane
Co-Founder and CEO
ARCHANGELS
Alexandra is co-founder and CEO of ARCHANGELS, a women-owned, public benefit corporation and omni-channel platform shamelessly hustling to make change happen for the 43% of adults across our nation serving as unpaid caregivers. ARCHANGELS engages and supports caregivers across all 50 states through partnerships with employers, consumer brands, health-plans/systems, communities, and states.
Alex co-founded Rebel Health, Eliza Corporation (acquired by HMS Holdings Corp: HMSY, now Cotiviti), Engage with Grace, and three other companies (all boot-strapped). A serial entrepreneur ever looking for opportunities to connect with people, She believes communities are the frontline of health, that caregivers are our country’s greatest asset, and that we need to expand the definition of health to include life.
Kathleen Ellmore
Co-Founder and Managing Partner
Engagys
Kathleen Ellmore is one of the earliest pioneers in bringing the best of consumer marketing and data-driven methodologies to healthcare. Instead of getting you to eat when you are not hungry and buy things you don’t need, Kathleen uses the same strategies to instead change the health equation in America. Kathleen previously led the Consumer Engagement consulting practice for Welltok (formerly Silverlink) for 12 years, leveraging its data repository of over a billion consumer health interactions, the best of behavioral economics, and the latest in clinical research, to create evidenced-based communications on what works to drive consumer healthcare behavior yielding better outcomes and lower costs.
Robert Fields
EVP, Chief Clinical Officer
Beth Israel Lahey Health
Dr. Robert Fields is a family medicine physician and EVP, Chief Clinical Officer at Beth Israel Lahey Health, a Harvard-affiliated 14-hospital system in Boston. He leads systemwide efforts in quality and safety, as well as strategy and operations across primary care, behavioral health, lab, pharmacy, and home health, including hospital-at-home programs. He also oversees the 1115 Medicaid waiver response and directs managed care and population health strategy.
Dr. Fields began his career as an independent primary care physician serving underserved Latino communities in Western North Carolina. After launching one of the state’s first successful value-based networks, he joined Mount Sinai, where he became Chief Population Health Officer, overseeing population health and managed care for the $9B system. In 2023, he joined Beth Israel Lahey Health as its first EVP and Chief Clinical Officer,
Jason S. Fish, MD
CEO
Yale Health
Dr. Jason S. Fish is a respected healthcare leader with over 15 years of leadership experience in healthcare delivery and operations. As the CEO of Yale Health and a Clinical Professor of Medicine at Yale University, he is dedicated to advancing healthcare excellence, equity, and access for the Yale community. With a unique combination of clinical expertise, business insight, and academic credentials, Dr. Fish has become a pioneer in value-based care and innovation.
Anna Gosline
VP, Member Engagement, Experience and Advocacy
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts
Anna Gosline is Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives in the Executive Office at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and Executive Director of the Massachusetts Coalition for Serious Illness Care. She leads a broad portfolio of policy, community, and strategic initiatives focused on improving healthcare quality, affordability, and person-centered care, with particular expertise in serious illness and palliative care strategy.
Prior to her current role, Anna served as Director of Policy and Research at the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, where she oversaw the organization’s policy and research agenda. Her background also includes health system research and healthcare journalism in the UK and Canada. Anna holds a master’s degree in Health Policy and Management from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Amy Gleason
Acting Administrator
U.S. DOGE Service
Amy Gleason is the Acting Administrator of the U.S. DOGE Service and Strategic Advisor to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), where she leads national initiatives to modernize healthcare technology and improve data interoperability. Previously, she served as Chief Product Officer at Russell Street Ventures, where she led digital health innovation at Main Street Health and CareBridge. Amy also served with the U.S. Digital Service at the White House, where she created the national COVID-19 database and led major efforts such as the Pandemic Ready Interoperable Modernization Effort (PRIME) and Data at the Point of Care.
Lisa Golden
(Former) Chief Operating Officer
Geisinger Health Plan
Senior healthcare executive with leadership experience in health plan operations, population health, and value-based care. As COO of Geisinger Health Plan, she was responsible for operational performance, care management infrastructure, and advancing integrated models that align member engagement, clinical delivery, and cost management within employer-sponsored and value-based frameworks.
Steven Goldberg, MD, MBA
Chief Medical Officer
HealthTrackRx
Steven Goldberg, MD, MBA, is a nationally recognized healthcare leader, named one of Modern Healthcare’s “100 Most Influential in Healthcare” in 2020—ranked #39 for his leadership of employee health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Known for his energetic presence, clarity of communication, and rigorous attention to detail, Dr. Goldberg is widely regarded as a thoughtful and collaborative voice in the advancement of healthcare delivery. Dr. Goldberg currently serves as Chief Medical Officer of HealthTrackRx, the nation’s leader in outpatient infectious disease diagnostics with next-morning PCR results.
Carmen Renée Green, MD
Dean
The City University of New York (CUNY) School of Medicine
Carmen Renee Green leads the CUNY School of Medicine, a public institution focused on addressing the social determinants of health by training future doctors and physician assistants who often come from and return to serve historically underserved communities. An award-winning professor, anesthesiologist, and pain medicine specialist, Dr. Green is nationally recognized for groundbreaking research exposing inequities in pain treatment affecting women, minorities, older adults, and low-income populations. She also authored foundational research on racial disparities in hospital security calls.
Apurv Gupta, MD, MPH
Co-Founder & Board Member
A Loving Organization Consortium
Dr. Gupta is an expert in driving transformational change for leading healthcare systems. He is a thought leader in physician engagement, change management, quality transformation, and leadership development. He coaches and mentors healthcare leaders to help them lead transformation efforts for their organizations. An Internal Medicine physician by training, he has held positions as Medical Director, Chief Medical Officer, Vice President of Network Performance Improvement, and Director of Care Transformation. Deeply committed to values of compassion, trust, and growth mindset, he is an innovator and champion for staff empowerment. One prominent example is his pioneering work in developing A Loving Organization model to help create sustainable and profitable organizations through a loving systems based approach.
Sam Hanke
Chief Patient and Family Experience Officer
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
Dr. Sam Hanke is the Chief Patient and Family Experience Officer and an Associate Professor of Pediatric Cardiology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. A specialist in treating infants and children with complex congenital heart disease, Dr. Hanke leverages his clinical expertise and training in quality improvement science to lead large-scale efforts in family-centered care.
Carol Keohane, MS, BSN, RN
Senior Vice President, Chief Quality and Safety Officer
South Shore Health
Carol Keohane is Senior Vice President and Chief Quality & Safety Officer at South Shore Health, the largest independent not for profit health system in Southeastern Massachusetts, where she leads system wide efforts to advance quality, safety, patient experience, and continuous improvement. She brings deep expertise in healthcare quality, safety, risk management, and clinical operations, with a proven track record of delivering innovative, cost effective solutions. Ms. Keohane has authored more than 50 peer reviewed publications in leading journals, serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Patient Safety, and is nationally recognized for translating research into actionable strategies—particularly in quality and safety, obstetrics, neonatology, and health IT integration.
Nick Kraft
Senior Vice President, Chief Customer & Market Engagement Officer
CDPHP
Chief Customer & Market Engagement Officer for Lifetime Health Care Companies, parent of Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, Univera Healthcare, and CDPHP. He leads enterprise efforts across customer strategy, marketing, brand, innovation, and engagement, focused on making health care more affordable, accessible, and easier to navigate for members, employers, providers, and communities. Previously, Nick served as SVP and Chief Growth Officer at CDPHP, where he oversaw product innovation, sales, marketing, customer experience, and community relations. During his tenure, CDPHP achieved record membership growth, earned national recognition as a top-growing Medicare Advantage plan, and generated over $900 million in new revenue, restoring profitability across key business lines. He also established CDPHP’s Revenue Organization, aligning growth functions into a unified data-driven team
Stephen Lansing, P.A.
Physician Assistant
South Shore Health
Stephen Lansing is a Physician Assistant practicing in both the Emergency Department and Internal Medicine Department at South Shore Health. Graduating from a 5-year accelerated PA program – Stephen brings over 10 years of clinical experience while also teaching as an Adjunct Professor at Tufts Physician Assistant School. Stephen serves as the elected Advanced Practice Clinician on SSH’s Provider Council focusing on initiatives to improve clinical practice and wellbeing. In his role, Stephen developed a new program centered on providing clinicians with positive feedback, stream-lined the APC Emergency Room Critical Care Billing System and aided in creating and maintaining a new triage system for the Emergency Room. Stephen is a multirole practitioner whose leadership is anchored in clinical excellence - providing “a credible and compassionate voice.”
Alice Lorch, MD, MPH
Associate Chief Medical Officer and VP of Medical Affairs
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)
Alice Lorch, MD, MPH, is the Associate Chief Medical Officer and Vice President for Medical Affairs for Massachusetts General Hospital and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital. Until September 2024, she was the Director of the Harvard Medical School (HMS) Residency Program in Ophthalmology and the Vice Chair for Education in Ophthalmology at Mass Eye and Ear.
Dr. Lorch graduated with a BS in Biology from Yale University and subsequently earned her MD at HMS. A graduate of the HMS Residency Program in Ophthalmology, Dr. Lorch served as Chief Resident and Director of the Trauma Service for the academic year 2014-15. After this, she accepted a position as a member of the Comprehensive Ophthalmology and Cataract Consultation Service at Massachusetts Eye and Ear while completing an MPH in Clinical Effectiveness at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Peter Lymm
Chief Operations Officer
CareOregon
Peter Lymm is Chief Operations Officer at CareOregon, where he leads enterprise operations for one of the largest Medicaid health plans in the Pacific Northwest. With more than 30 years of experience, he has led health plan and provider organizations through complex operational and financial environments. Previously, Peter served as Western Region Market President at P3 Health Partners and as Chief Operating Officer at Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island. He has also held senior roles at Aetna, ChenMed, Samsung’s Global Healthcare Division, American Well, and Yale New Haven Health. Peter holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Rochester and an MBA from the University of New Haven and serves on nonprofit and academic boards.
Natalya Martins, MPH
Chief Operating Officer
Massachusetts Health Quality Partners (MHQP)
Natalya Martins currently serves as Chief Operating Officer at MHQP, where she oversees organizational operations and MHQP’s quality measurement portfolio, including its statewide patient experience survey programs. She has played a key role in expanding MHQP’s equity agenda, leading several initiatives with a focus on pain equity, as well as strategic efforts related to quality measurement innovation and elevating the patient voice in quality improvement. Her work blends methodological rigor with a deep commitment to stakeholder engagement and transparency to advance data-informed improvements in healthcare quality and patient experience. Natalya received an MPH from Simmons University and a B.Sc. in Health & Exercise Science from Skidmore College.
Thom Mayer, MD
Former Medical Director
National Football League
Thom Mayer, MD, is a prominent figure in the fields of emergency medicine, sports medicine, and leadership in times of crisis. He has built a distinguished career focused on athlete health, safety, and emergency response, making significant contributions to both clinical practice and medical education.
Dr. Mayer has served as a medical director for various professional sports teams and events, including the NFL Players Association, where he has played a crucial role in developing and implementing protocols for player safety and injury management. His expertise has been instrumental in advancing the understanding of concussion management and emergency care in sports. He has worked closely with athletes, coaches, and medical teams to enhance the overall safety of participants in high-risk sports. He was recently nominated to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton.
Danish Nagda
Founder
Rezilient
Danish is a pioneering physician-entrepreneur whose career combines clinical expertise with transformative technology innovation. His journey from creating one of the world's most successful learning platforms to practicing medicine demonstrates an exceptional ability to identify systemic challenges and develop scalable solutions that impact millions of lives globally.
Danish's educational foundation was established at the prestigious University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, where he developed the clinical knowledge and patient-centered perspective that would later inform his entrepreneurial ventures. He completed his ENT residency at Washington University in St. Louis, bringing both the rigor of medical training and the empathy of direct patient care to his work, experiences that are further deepened by his personal role as a caregiver for his father.
Zeev Neuwirth, MD
Head of Strategic Partnerships & Network Development
Rezilient Health
Dr. Zeev Neuwirth is a healthcare executive with over 15 years of clinical experience as an internal medicine physician and nearly 20 years of experience in clinical operations, population health and strategic services. He most recently served as the CEO of a Medicaid Managed Care Organization. Prior to that he served in a number of roles at Atrium Health (now Advocate Health) including Chief of Clinical Care Transformation, Senior Medical Director of Population Health, Chief Clinical Executive for the Medical Group, and Chief Medical Officer for the Medical Group.
In 2017, Zeev launched an award-winning podcast, 'Creating a New Healthcare'. This podcast has over 200 posts and is one of the longest lasting healthcare industry podcasts.
Helen Riess, MD
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Harvard Medical School
Helen Riess, MD is Chief Scientist for Empathetics. Dr. Riess is Associate Professor of Psychiatry, PT, at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Empathy and Relational Science Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is a core member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations (CREIO) and faculty of the Harvard Macy Institute. Dr. Riess is a psychiatrist who developed an empathy training approach based on research in the neurobiology and physiology of empathy that has been rigorously tested in pilot studies and a randomized, controlled trial at MGH. She completed her residency and Chief Residency at MGH and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Riess has devoted her career to teaching and research in the art and science of the patient-doctor relationship.
Carol Santalucia
President
Santalucia Group, LLC
Carol Santalucia is a seasoned healthcare leader with a passion and commitment to enhancing the patient and employee experience. Carol began her career at the Cleveland Clinic in 1983, where she worked in various service excellence and leadership roles, most recently as the Director of Service Excellence. She played a pivotal role in the formation of Cleveland Clinic’s Service Excellence Department and the creation of Cleveland Clinic’s Communicate with H.E.A.R.T. Program. Although now retired from the Cleveland Clinic, Carol began her own consulting firm, and has worked nationwide on improving the experience for patients, families and employees at over 40 organizations.
Carol received an MBA in Healthcare Administration from Cleveland State University and a BS in Psychology from Denison University. She is a past-president of the Society for Healthcare Consumer Advocacy and the Ohio
Michelle Schreiber, M.D.
Deputy Director for Quality & Value
CMS
Dr. Schreiber is currently the Deputy Director of the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality for the Centers (CCSQ) and the Director of the Quality Measurement and Value-Based Incentives Group at CMS. Dr. Schreiber is a general internal medicine physician with over 25 years of health care experience. Most recently, she was the Senior Vice President and Chief Quality Officer of Henry Ford Health System (HFHS) in Detroit, Michigan. Prior roles at HFHS included the Division Head of General Internal Medicine, and the SVP of Clinical Transformation and IT Integration, where she was the clinical lead of the systemwide Epic implementation. The Epic implementation and use earned HFHS a Davies Award in 2018. She has also held senior leadership roles at the Detroit Medical Center, where she was the Chief Quality Officer, and with Trinity Health System where she was the national system Chief Med
Jeremy Segall, MA, RDT, LCAT, FPCC
Jeremy Segall, MA, RDT, LCAT, FPCC is the inaugural System Chief Wellness Officer at NYC Health + Hospitals, the largest municipal public healthcare system in the nation. He currently oversees the human experience continuum for the entire enterprise, including employee well-being response efforts and engagement strategy, governing the system’s wellness programming, person-centered care certification, and care experience portfolios consisting of the system's customer service values. He coordinated the Healing Education Resilience and Opportunity for New York’s Frontline Workforce (HERO-NY) Taskforce bringing together the US Department of Defense, VA, USUHS, DOHMH, GNYHA, and FDNY to create a training series addressing resilience to be adapted for civilian audiences. The HERO-NY training has spread to 43 countries, 5 continents, and has trained over 120,000+ global healthcare workers
Mark Selna, MD
President and Chief Innovation Officer
Guidehealth
Physician–executive leading enterprise innovation across AI-enabled care delivery, predictive analytics, and value-based operating models. Focused on embedding intelligence into clinical workflows and engagement to drive measurable improvements in outcomes, experience, and cost at scale.
Philip J. Shelato, MBA
Chief Strategy Officer
rule of three, LLC
Phil has spent most of the last decade in healthcare advisory, focusing on organizational strategy, transformation, operations, and execution. Most recently, he was a Vice President at Lumeris, primarily responsible for population health services organization design and development of long-term operating partnerships with health systems. Prior to Lumeris, he was part of IBM Watson Health’s Strategic Advisory Practice, North Highland, and DHG Healthcare’s Strategy Practice.
Sue Sheridan, MIM, MBA, DHL
Founding Member
Patients For Patient Safety
Joshua Weiner
SVP, Consumer Engagement & Analytics
CVS Health
Josh Weiner has dedicated his career to improving U.S. health care and developing consumer experiences. His expertise spans personalization, health care technology, and consumer engagement. He has built products and shaped strategy at McKinsey and Company, Meta, and CVS Health.
Josh is currently the Senior Vice President of Consumer Engagement & Analytics at CVS Health. His priority is using AI to grow, retain, and engage consumers.
Passionate about pediatric health, Josh is a Board Director at Enduring Hearts and Docs for Tots. He holds a B.S. from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.S. from Northwestern University.
Benjamin White
Director of Patient Experience
Mass General Brigham Emergency Medicine
Cammie Wolf Rice
CEO
Christopher Wolf Crusade
After losing her son Christopher to opioid misuse at just 32 years old, Cammie Wolf Rice channeled her grief into action, founding CWC Alliance in 2018 and publishing her story, The Flight: My Opioid Journey, in 2022. Through CWC Alliance, she created the Life Care Specialist (LCS) role: a first-of-its-kind position in healthcare to address the critical gap that failed Christopher, making sure patients receive trauma-informed pain management and substance use prevention as part of their care. This approach has since been adopted in hospitals across the country, was selected as the subject of a Harvard Business School case study, and was named the top recommendation by Georgia’s 2024 House Study Committee on Alternatives to Opioids.
Judith Wolfe, MD
Chief Medical Officer
University Hospitals St. John Medical Center
Dr. Judith Wolfe is an emergency physician and the current Chief Medical Officer at University Hospitals St. John Medical Center, as well as an Associate Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine. With over two decades of experience, she is an internationally recognized expert in patient experience, healthcare communication, and the application of artificial intelligence in medical settings. Dr. Wolfe's expertise, honed through roles such as Associate Chief Experience Officer at Cleveland Clinic, spans clinical practice, operational efficiency, and care model innovation. Her work focuses on leveraging advanced technologies to improve healthcare outcomes while addressing critical issues in patient care delivery.
Stay & Explore
Accommodations
The Colonnade
Stay on-site at the conference location
10th Anniversary Leadership Circle
Reserve by May 15 and receive a $100 rebate per night stayed, for up to three nights.
The Colonnade has provided thoughtful hospitality to Boston visitors and residents for more than 50 years. A dynamic Back Bay landmark whose opening launched the neighborhood’s renaissance in the early 1970s, The Colonnade is home to the city’s only rooftop pool.
120 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA
10th Anniversary Leadership Circle
As we mark ten years of bringing together leaders dedicated to advancing patient-centered care, we are recognizing the first 50 individuals who commit to joining us in Boston.
The first 50 attendees who:
• Register for the Symposium
• Reserve their room at The Colonnade Hotel within the official group block
by May 15, 2026, will receive a $100 rebate per night stayed, for up to three nights.
That is up to $300 in additional savings, in addition to our best registration rates.
Leadership Circle recognition is offered on a first-come, first-served basis and is our way of acknowledging those who continue to invest in this community and its mission. The group rate at The Colonnade is available for up to three nights before and after the conference.
Conference Venue
A Boston Landmark Designed for Meaningful Connection
Where timeless architecture meets modern healthcare dialogue
Located in the heart of Back Bay, the Colonnade Hotel offers a distinctive Boston setting for healthcare conferences that value both substance and experience. With abundant natural light, and walkable access to the city’s academic, clinical, and cultural institutions, the Colonnade creates an environment that supports focused learning, authentic networking, and productive collaboration.
Pricing
10th Anniversary Leadership Circle
As we mark ten years of bringing together leaders dedicated to advancing patient-centered care, we are recognizing the first 50 individuals who commit early to joining us in Boston.
The first 50 attendees who:
• Register for the Symposium
• Reserve their room at The Colonnade Hotel within the official group block
by May 15, 2026, will receive a $100 rebate per night stayed, for up to three nights.
That is up to $300 in additional savings, in addition to our best registration rates.
The group rate at The Colonnade is available for up to three nights before and after the conference, giving you additional time to connect with colleagues and reflect on the work ahead.
Pricing
Before May 15
Before July 17
Regular Rate
Healthcare Leaders (Providers, Payers, Academics, Government)
Main Conference Only
$1,295
$1,495
$1,795
Main Conference + 1 Workshop
$1,545
$1,745
$2,045
Full Symposium Experience (Main + 2 Workshops)
$1,695
$1,895
$2,195
Non-Sponsoring Solution Providers
Main Conference Only
$1,895
$2,095
$2,395
Main + 1 Workshop
$2,145
$2,345
$2,645
Full Symposium Experience (Main + 2 Workshops)
$2,295
$2,495
$2,795
Bring Your Team & Save
Transformation happens faster when teams learn together.
Register three or more delegates from the same organization at the same time and receive 10% off each registration.
This is an ideal opportunity to align leadership, clinical, operational, and patient experience teams around shared strategies and actionable takeaways.
Planning to bring a larger group? We’re happy to create a customized package to support your team’s participation. Please contact us at info@icdevents.com to discuss preferred pricing and coordination support.
Cancellation & Substitution Policy
We understand that schedules shift and unexpected circumstances arise. If you are unable to attend, please notify us in writing as soon as possible.
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Cancellations received on or before August 14, 2026 will receive a full refund, less a $200 administrative fee.
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Cancellations received between August 15 and September 14, 2026 will receive a credit voucher for the full paid amount, valid for any future ICD conference within 12 months.
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Because of contractual commitments and advance planning, we are unable to offer refunds or credits for cancellations received on or after September 15, 2026.
If you are unable to attend, you are welcome to send a colleague in your place at no additional cost. Substitutions may be made at any time.
Our goal is to support your participation in a way that feels fair while honoring the commitments required to bring this community together.
Program content and speakers are subject to change.
Sponsorship
Partner With Us
Where Patient Experience Leaders Drive Meaningful Change
An intimate forum for decision-makers shaping the human side of healthcare
The Patient Experience Symposium brings together the leaders, clinicians, and innovators redefining how care is delivered, communicated, and experienced. Through practical case studies, peer-driven discussion, and thoughtfully curated sessions, the symposium offers a focused environment for advancing trust, empathy, and outcomes across the continuum of care.
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Sponsorship Packages
Options to Fit Your Needs
ICD is happy to work with you to customize these tiered sponsorship packages to meet your organization’s goals and budget, each designed to maximize brand exposure, thought leadership, and networking opportunities.
» Reserve a Tabletop
» Host the Opening Reception
» Sponsor an Exclusive Luncheon or Networking Break
» Be a Part of the Conference Registration
Partners
©2025 International Conference Development, LLC. All rights reserved. ICD is an independent, purpose-driven producer of national events and symposia. All conference programs, speakers, and schedules are subject to change without notice. For sponsorship or speaking opportunities, please contact info@icdevents.com. View our Privacy Policy.