Director, Patient Experience

Episcopal Health Services•Far Rockaway, NY

8d•Onsite

About The Position

The Director of Patient Experience reports to the Chief Patient Experience Officer. In this role, the Director Patient Experience provides leadership and operational oversight for the Office of Patient Experience. This role is responsible for developing, planning, implementing, and evaluating comprehensive Patient and Customer Experience programs, advocacy initiatives, and service excellence models across the health system. This role directs the implementation and sustainability of Planetree International principles, Age-Friendly Health System initiatives (4Ms), external service vendor integration, and high-level performance reporting.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree required (Master’s preferred) in Healthcare Administration, Nursing, Public Health, or related field.
5-7 years of experience in patient advocacy, patient experience, project management, healthcare operations, or related field.
Experience managing and coaching teams and leading performance improvement initiatives.
Strong leadership, coaching, and team development skills.
Expertise in patient satisfaction data analysis and performance improvement.
Knowledge of Age-Friendly Health Systems and the 4Ms Framework.
Excellent communication, interpersonal, and conflict resolution skills.
Ability to influence change and collaborate across all levels of the organization.

Nice To Haves

Certified Professional in Patient Experience (CPXP) preferred
Experience with Person-Centered Care models and/or Planetree International preferred.
Experience with Age Friendly 4M Framework preferred.

Responsibilities

Provide operational leadership and day-to-day management of the Office of Patient Experience, ensuring alignment with Episcopal Health Services’ mission, strategic priorities, and ICARE values.
Lead, coach, develop, and evaluate Patient Experience team members, establishing clear expectations for performance, accountability, professionalism, and service excellence.
Establish departmental goals, performance indicators, workflows, policies, and procedures to support consistent and effective operations.
Monitor departmental performance and ensure timely completion of patient experience, advocacy, regulatory, and organizational priorities.
Provide leadership oversight of the Language Assistance Program, ensuring appropriate access to interpreter and translation services and compliance with applicable regulatory requirements.
Serve as a visible leader and champion for person-centered care throughout the organization.
Support the Chief Patient Experience Officer in implementing organizational patient experience priorities and strategic initiatives.
Lead the implementation of EHS patient experience strategies designed to improve the experience of patients, families, and care partners across the continuum of care.
Monitor and analyze CAHPS (HCAHPS, OAS, ICH, PIX) and real-time patient satisfaction surveys, rounding data, complaints, grievances, and other patient feedback to identify trends and opportunities for improvement.
Translate patient experience data and patient feedback into measurable improvement plans in partnership with clinical and operational leaders.
Establish performance goals and monitor progress toward organizational patient experience targets.
Promote evidence-based practices related to communication, responsiveness, empathy, rounding, service excellence, and person-centered care.
Identify barriers to an exceptional patient experience and partner with leaders to implement sustainable solutions.
Prepare and present patient experience trends, performance results, improvement initiatives, and recommendations to leadership and appropriate committees.
Direct EHS patient advocacy functions, including oversight (management) of patient complaints, grievances, patient rights, and service recovery.
Ensure complaints and grievances are thoroughly investigated, documented, resolved, and responded to within organizational and regulatory requirements.
Oversee the quality, accuracy, timeliness, and completeness of grievance investigations and written responses.
Ensure compliance with applicable CMS, New York State Department of Health, The Joint Commission, and organizational requirements related to patient rights and grievances.
Provide leadership and consultation for complex, sensitive, or escalated patient and family concerns.
Empower Patient Experience staff and organizational leaders to use effective service-recovery techniques to address concerns as close to the point of service as possible.
Analyze complaint and grievance trends to identify systemic concerns and recommend corrective and preventive actions.
Ensure patients, families, and care partners are treated with dignity, respect, compassion, and cultural sensitivity throughout the resolution process.
Develop and support education that strengthens communication, empathy, hospitality, service excellence, and person-centered care behaviors throughout EHS.
Partner with organizational learning and department leaders to integrate patient experience expectations into orientation, leadership development, and ongoing staff education.
Reinforce effective communication practices, including AIDET, purposeful rounding, service recovery, and other established patient experience standards.
Coach leaders and frontline team members on behaviors that influence patient trust, communication, responsiveness, and overall experience.
Use patient stories, survey feedback, complaints, grievances, and recognition data as learning opportunities to connect employees with the impact of their work.
Promote recognition of employees and teams who demonstrate exceptional commitment to patients, families, and EHS values.
Serve as a change agent who helps embed patient experience as a shared organizational responsibility rather than the responsibility of a single department.
Build strong partnerships with nursing, medical staff, quality, risk management, regulatory, operations, human resources, and other departments to advance patient experience priorities.
Engage patients, families, and care partners as partners in identifying opportunities to improve care delivery and organizational practices.
Support the Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC) and other mechanisms for incorporating the patient and family voice into improvement initiatives.
Collaborate with clinical and operational leaders to address patient experience trends and establish shared accountability for improvement.
Partner with community-facing departments and stakeholders to ensure patient experience initiatives reflect the needs of the diverse communities served by EHS.
Participate in organizational committees, leadership meetings, performance improvement activities, and strategic initiatives as appropriate.
Communicate patient experience priorities, successes, risks, and opportunities effectively to senior leadership and key stakeholders.
Foster an environment in which employees, physicians, patients, families, and community partners are actively engaged in advancing EHS’s commitment to exceptional, equitable, and person-centered care.