Vice President - Patient Experience

gundersenhealth; La Crosse (WI); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Emplify Health seeks a Vice President, Patient Experience to lead enterprise patient experience strategy, governance, and culture across regions. You will align patient, family, workforce, and community experience into a unified enterprise approach that advances quality, safety, and organizational reputation.

The role partners with executive leadership, physicians, nursing, operations, HR, and IT to translate feedback into action and drive improvements across care settings.

Qualifications

• Master's degree in Healthcare Administration or related field; or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• CPXP certification within 3 years of hire.
• 10+ years of progressive healthcare leadership experience, including executive level responsibility.
• Experience leading enterprise transformation in a matrixed health system.

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.

Education

Master's degree in Healthcare Administration

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.

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