Vice President | Patient Experience

Gundersen Health System; La Crosse (WI); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive benefits package

Tuition investment program

Career development opportunities

Job summary

Emplify Health is seeking a Vice President, Patient Experience to lead the enterprise strategy and governance for patient, family, workforce, and community experiences across regions. Reporting to the Chief People Officer, this role drives alignment of quality, safety, and service excellence with executive leadership.

The VP will champion dashboards, accountability, and a culture of empathy and belonging, advancing health equity and data-driven improvements.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in Healthcare Administration, Business Administration, Public Health, Human Services, or a health-related field.
• CPXP certification within 3 years of hire.
• 10+ years of progressive healthcare leadership with executive responsibility.
• Lean, Six Sigma or Design Thinking certification and AI-enabled experience solutions are desirable.

Responsibilities

• Lead enterprise patient experience strategy and governance.
• Partner with executive leaders and Board on patient experience.
• Oversee listening strategy and dashboards linking experience, workforce, quality, safety, and finance.
• Drive culture transformation with emphasis on empathy, belonging, and psychological safety.

Skills

Leadership

Strategic planning

Stakeholder management

Healthcare operations

Education

Master’s degree in Healthcare Admin / Business Admin / Public Health / Human Services

Master’s degree within 5 years of hire

CPXP certification within 3 years of hire

Job description

Love + medicine is who we are, it's what we do, it's why people want to work here. If you’re looking for a job to love.

Scheduled Weekly Hours: 40 Vice President, Patient Experience Reports to: Chief People Officer Location: Primarily on-site in Green Bay and La Crosse, WI. Candidates can reside in either market but there is an expectation to spend equal time in both markets. Candidates must reside in WI, MI, MN, or IA at the time of hire.

About the Opportunity

Emplify Health is seeking a Vice President, Patient Experience to serve as the enterprise leader responsible for shaping the strategy, governance, operating model, and culture that drive exceptional human experiences across the organization. Reporting to the Chief People Officer, this leader will integrate patient, family, workforce, and community experience into a unified enterprise strategy that advances quality, safety, workforce engagement, operational excellence, and organizational reputation. This role provides leadership across all regions and care settings and partners closely with executive leaders, physicians, nursing, operations, IT Digital Services, HR, quality, and finance. The Vice President will serve as a senior advisor to executive leadership and the Board on patient experience, helping ensure Emplify Health continues to strengthen the way patients, families, caregivers, and communities experience care.

Why This Role Matters

This is a high-impact enterprise leadership opportunity with visibility across Emplify Health’s regions and care settings. The Vice President, Patient Experience will help shape and align best practices across the organization, strengthen governance and accountability, and partner closely with executive leaders, the Board, and the culture and engagement team. The role offers the chance to build on strong patient experience performance, improve consistency in how feedback is translated into action, and advance a more integrated approach to patient, physician, and digital experience.

Major Responsibilities

• Establish and execute the enterprise patient experience strategy.
• Establish enterprise governance for patient advocacy, grievances, and service recovery.
• Lead the enterprise listening strategy integrating patient, family, caregiver, and community feedback.
• Govern enterprise dashboards connecting experience, workforce, quality, safety, operations, and financial performance.
• Champion digital and AI-enabled innovations that reduce friction for patients and caregivers.
• Ensure experience strategies address health equity and disparities.
• Partner with HR to sponsor organization-wide culture transformation centered on empathy, belonging, psychological safety, and service excellence.
• Partner with HR to embed experience into leadership development, onboarding, recognition, and performance management.
• Represent Emplify Health externally through professional organizations and strategic partnerships.
• Core for all Leaders: Organizational Strategy and Implementation - Recognizes market trends, judges the impact on their AOR, contributes to responsive strategic plans, develops AOR operational plans, articulates these plans, and ensures they are communicated to gain alignment and commitment of all AOR staff.
• Fiscal Management - Effectively uses established processes to ensure accountability for effective operations and resource management.
• Human Resource Management - Effectively uses established processes to: select, align, develop, motivate, manage, and retain a team of highly skilled employees.
• Excellence in Service and Quality - Achieves seamless delivery of quality patient care, safety, excellence in patient experience, and customer service. Utilizes Continuous Quality Improvement principles and platform planning in decisions, improvements, and system design.
• Organizational Leadership - Provides leadership and accomplishes objectives by ensuring the integration of processes and initiatives while modeling collaboration. Participates and supports in brand/service delivery teams as requested.
• Maintains accountability for implementation of requirements of regulatory agencies.
• Serves as liaison to the community.
• Duties and responsibilities as defined by specific department (if applicable).

Qualifications

• Required Education: Master’s degree in Healthcare Administration, Business Administration, Public Health, Human Services, or a health-related field; or equivalent combination of education and experience; or master’s degree acquired within 5 years of hire.
• Required Certification/Registration/Licensure: Certified Patient Experience Professional (CPXP) within 3 years of hire.
• Required Experience: 10+ years of progressive healthcare leadership, including executive-level responsibility. Demonstrated success leading enterprise transformation in a matrixed health system.
• Desired Qualifications: Health system integration experience. Lean, Six Sigma, or Design Thinking certification. Experience with AI-enabled experience solutions.

The Organization

Emplify Health is comprised of two of the Midwest’s most respected healthcare systems, Bellin Health and Gundersen Health System. Once neighbors, we are now partners, united in our mission to provide exceptional care to our communities. As a not-for-profit, patient-centered healthcare network, we have headquarters in Green Bay and La Crosse, Wisconsin. Our extensive network includes 11 hospitals and more than 100 clinics, serving 67 cities and rural communities across Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. With over 4,500 dedicated nurses and providers, we are committed to delivering primary, specialty and emergency care, along with innovative medical education programs.

Mission

Together, we inspire your best life by relentlessly caring, learning and innovating.

Vision

Leading with love, we courageously commit to a future of healthy people and thriving communities.

Values

• Belonging
• Respect
• Excellence
• Accountability
• Teamwork
• Humility

The Communities

About Us: Bellin and Gundersen Health Systems, headquartered in Green Bay, WI, and La Crosse, WI, respectively, are now united as Emplify Health. We serve communities across Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, providing primary, specialty, and emergency care.

About La Crosse, WI: La Crosse is a vibrant city nestled along the Mississippi River, known for its stunning natural beauty and rich cultural heritage. It offers a high quality of life with excellent schools, diverse recreational activities, and a strong sense of community. Our La Crosse Campus is home to Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center, providing specialized care and a wide range of outpatient services. For more information on La Crosse, please visit: https://www.explorelacrosse.com/

About Green Bay, WI: Green Bay, famous for its passionate sports culture and the Green Bay Packers, is a thriving city with a welcoming community. It boasts a robust economy, top-notch educational institutions, and numerous parks and recreational facilities. Bellin Health’s flagship campus in Green Bay is renowned for its emphasis on preventive healthcare and specialties like cardiac, orthopedics, and mental health. For more information, please visit: https://www.greenbay.com/

Why Consider Emplify Health?

• Comprehensive Benefits Package: We offer a comprehensive benefits package that varies based on your location.
• Comprehensive Care: Be part of a team that delivers compassionate, patient-centered care across multiple specialties.
• Community Impact: Work in communities where your contributions make a tangible difference in people’s lives.
• Professional Growth: Access continuous learning opportunities and career development programs.
• Collaborative Environment: Join a supportive network of healthcare professionals committed to excellence.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Around here, loving your job is part of the job. Join our mission in changing healthcare while finding a career you’ll love! Gundersen Health System offers a proud, local history spanning more than 100 years. Our personalized patient care model is only the beginning of what you will experience as we foster population health transformation and innovation to serve our communities and you. We’ve made it a priority to enrich the lives of our employees as they find a career they love. Using each employee’s unique talents and passions, Gundersen is committed to delivering exceptional patient and family-centered care to the communities we serve.

You can be part of an exciting, highly adaptable and mission-driven organization with a work environment that supports you personally and professionally and a work culture where you are valued and appreciated offering an employee-first culture, work-life balance, and career advancement & growth opportunities. This culture allows our organization to attract elite talent, like yourself!

What You Can Expect: Empowerment to shape your work environment, encouragement to improve processes and create efficiencies, and support when seeking opportunities for growth Culture that encourages self-care and provides you with opportunities to be your best self at work and at home Competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits packages, as applicable, ensuring your comfort and well-being as a valuable team member Support for your career growth through Professional Development Opportunities, our Tuition Investment Program, Career Development Center, and online continuing education courses Inside our walls and our neighborhoods, we deliver world-class medical care and the right amount of love. We call it LOVE + MEDICINE and it’s more than our practice.

Select Remote/Hybrid Eligible under More search to see our remote-eligible openings.

A rewarding career and an excellent quality of life awaits you. Learn more about our excellence in patient care, education, research, culture, and something we call Love + Medicine at www.gundersenhealth.org/careers/life.