Sr Director - Patient Experience & Advocacy
If you are looking to make an impact on a meaningful scale, come join us as we embrace the Power of One!
We strive to be an employer of choice and establish a reputation for being a talent rich organization where Associates can grow their career caring for others. For over a century, we’ve served the health care needs of the people of Memphis and the Mid-South.
Working at MLH means carrying the mission forward of caring for our community and impacting the lives of patients in every way through compassion, a deliberate focus on service expectations and a consistent thriving for excellence.
A Brief Overview
Responsible for the development, execution, and continuous advancement of a system-wide patient experience and advocacy strategy across the continuum of care. Leads efforts to create one consistent, high-reliability experience standard that supports the patient's physical comfort, emotional well-being, education, spiritual needs, and responsiveness of care. Drives measurable improvements in patient experience outcomes by integrating experience into clinical operations, clinical governance, and frontline care delivery. Partners closely with physicians, nursing, and operational leaders to embed experience as a core quality domain, aligning with system priorities and values. Model appropriate behavior as exemplified in MLH Mission, Vision and Values.
What you will do
- Enterprise Patient Experience Strategy • Leads development and execution of the system-wide patient experience strategy • Establishes a standardized experience model across all care settings • Defines “what good looks like” for patient-centered care at every touchpoint
- Whole-Person Experience Model • Designs and operationalizes a system approach addressing: o Physical comfort (pain, environment, cleanliness, quietness) o Emotional support (empathy, respect, compassion) o Patient and family education (clear communication, shared decision-making) o Spiritual and cultural needs (integration with chaplaincy and support services)
- Experience Standards & Reliability • Establishes clear, observable service behaviors and interaction standards • Embeds experience expectations into bedside care, rounding structures, tiered huddles and leader standard work • Drives consistency and accountability across all sites
- Patient Feedback & Listening Systems • Oversee system-wide patient feedback strategy, including: o HCAHPS and CG-CAHPS performance o Real-time patient feedback and escalation o Patient complaints, grievances, and compliments • Develop closed-loop feedback processes to ensure patients are heard and issues resolved
- Performance Improvement & Outcomes • Leads targeted initiatives to improve experience metrics and key drivers • Translate feedback into actionable improvement plans • Standardizes dashboards for facility, system, and board-level reporting
- Patient Advocacy & Service Recovery • Overseas patient advocacy programs, ensuring timely and effective response to concerns • Designs system approach to service recovery and trust rebuilding • Partners with Risk Management on patient communication and transparency
- Culture, Engagement & Accountability • Drives a culture of compassion, accountability, and ownership of experience • Partners with HR and leadership to integrate experience into performance evaluations, leadership expectations and recognition programs • Promotes psychological safety and respectful care environments
- Clinical Governance Integration • Serves as a key leader within the system clinical governance structure • Aligns patient experience with quality, safety, and access priorities • Partners with physician leaders to embed experience into clinical workflows
- Education, Training & Capability Building • Develops system-wide training for experience excellence • Ensures onboarding and continuous education includes: o Communication skills o Empathy and compassion training o Service recovery techniques • Supports leadership development in experience improvement
- Equity & Inclusion in Experience • Identifies and addresses disparities in patient experience outcomes • Ensures culturally competent, inclusive care across all populations • Partners with equity leaders to improve experience for underserved groups
- External Benchmarking & Innovation • Brings best practices from leading systems and industries • Establishes partnerships and benchmarking opportunities • Introduces innovative approaches to enhance patient experience
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) • Improvement in HCAHPS overall rating and likelihood to recommend • Improvement in key drivers including nurse & physician communication, responsiveness and care transitions • Reduction in patient complaints and escalation severity • Improvement in real-time patient feedback scores • Increased service recovery effectiveness • Reliability of frontline experience behaviors
Education Qualifications
- Required - Master's Degree Nursing
- Preferred - Master's Degree Business Administration
- Preferred - Master's Degree Healthcare Administration
- Preferred - Master's Degree Public Health
- Preferred - Clinical degree (RN, MD, or equivalent)
Experience Qualifications
- Required - Minimum 5–7 years of progressive leadership experience in patient experience, service excellence, or healthcare operations; Demonstrated success leading system-level experience transformation initiatives; Experience working with patient feedback systems (e.g., HCAHPS, Press Ganey, real-time feedback tools)
- Preferred - Experience in high reliability organizations and culture transformation
Skills and Abilities
- Deep expertise in patient safety science, human factors, and high reliability principles
- Demonstrated ability to lead enterprise-wide change and culture transformation
- Strong analytical capability in safety data interpretation and performance improvement
- Ability to influence physician, nursing, and executive leadership without direct authority
- Excellent communication and presentation skills (Board, ELT, and frontline engagement)
- Strong program management, facilitation, and team leadership capabilities
- Knowledge of regulatory and accreditation requirements (DNV, CMS, or equivalents)
Licenses and Certifications
- Required - Certified Patient Experience Professional (CPXP) Patient Experience Institute (PXI)
- Preferred - Six Sigma Black Belt - Authorized Six Sigma Certification Issuer
Supervision Provided by this Position
- Directly manages system-level patient experience and advocacy team
- Provides matrix leadership to facility-based experience leaders
- Oversees coordination across clinical, operational, and support departments
Physical Demands
- The physical activities of this position may include climbing, pushing, standing, hearing, walking, reaching, grasping, kneeling, stooping, and repetitive motion.
- Must have good balance and coordination.
- The physical requirements of this position are: light work - exerting up to 25 lbs. of force occasionally and/or up to 10 lbs. of force frequently.
- The Associate is required to have close visual acuity to perform an activity, such as preparing and analyzing data and figures; transcribing; viewing a computer terminal; or extensive reading.
- The conditions to which the Associate will be subject in this position: The Associate is not substantially exposed to adverse environmental conditions; job functions are typically performed under conditions such as those found in general office or administrative work.
Our Associates are passionate about what they do, the service they provide and the patients they serve. We value family, team and a Power of One culture that requires commitment to the highest standards of care and unity.
Boasting one of the South's largest medical centers, Memphis blends a friendly community, a thriving and growing downtown, and a low cost of living. We see each day as a new opportunity to make a difference in the lives of the people in our community.