Elevating Healthcare Employee Experience to Transform Patient Experience: Insights from NRC Health, Medallia, and UCI
In healthcare, the patient experience (PX) and employee experience (EX) are deeply intertwined. Employees who feel valued, supported, and empowered are more likely to deliver care that inspires trust, improves outcomes, and fosters patient loyalty. Conversely, when staff are overworked or disengaged, even the most sophisticated care systems can falter.
Recently, thought leaders from NRC Health, Medallia, and UCI Health shared insights on how feedback, trust, and strategic action can drive improvements in both EX and PX. Their discussion underscores that the healthcare experience is a two-way street: supporting employees strengthens the care patients receive.
Why Employee Experience Matters to Patient Experience
Amber emphasizes that healthcare organizations must go beyond simply measuring satisfaction or loyalty, instead humanizing experiences across the care journey and recognizing that employees’ day-to-day experiences directly influence the quality of patient interactions.
“We’re focusing on humanizing those experiences across the care journey,” she notes.
“Healthcare is deeply human and deeply vulnerable. Listening is what allows us to strengthen trust — between humans and the organizations that serve them,” she says.
In practical terms, this means designing processes, workflows, and feedback loops that help staff feel heard, supported, and capable of delivering excellent care. When employees are engaged and empowered, patients notice—and the result is greater trust, loyalty, and satisfaction.
Building Trust Among Employees and Patients
Brad Giafaglione, MBA, System Executive Director of UCI Experience and Operations, points out that even in a data-saturated, AI-driven world, human connection remains essential.
Brad’s insight highlights a crucial point: while technology provides rapid access to information, it cannot replace trust. Leaders who intentionally foster relationships with employees and patients create an environment where staff feel supported and patients feel cared for—and this trust ripple effect strengthens both employee engagement and patient outcomes.
“This AI space, in this AI world, is where we all can pull up anything that we need within seconds,” he says. “But really, you need to take some of those seconds to develop those relationships, develop that trust, and make sure to make that connection, and model that, as a leader.”
UCI Health focuses on creating a welcoming and healing environment, providing whole-person care, embracing Human Understanding to treat each person as unique, and supporting the next steps for any care they provide.
Leveraging Omnichannel Listening to Align EX and PX
Jennifer Baron, Chief Experience Officer at NRC Health, underscores the importance of omnichannel feedback as a tool for unifying employee and patient experience strategies.
She emphasizes that feedback should inform strategic action, not simply measure experience, describing this process as, “Thinking about feedback as a way to provide strategic action to actually move the health system forward.”
By integrating feedback from multiple touchpoints—surveys, open-ended responses, and direct employee input—healthcare organizations can identify pain points, highlight opportunities for improvement, and design human-centered systems. This cross-functional approach helps break down silos and ensure that employee needs and patient needs are being addressed together.
“A big opportunity is going to be omnichannel listening and the ability to capture feedback across many touchpoints. Given that resources are often limited, health systems could surface themes across feedback channels to understand where to focus for high impact,” she says.
“We’ve been talking about silos forever,” Jennifer says. “My hope in the next five years is that we will see more systems thinking. And we’re going to need that omnichannel listening to really drive greater human-centered system design.”
The Role of Partnerships in Enhancing Both EX and PX
Partnerships between healthcare organizations and experience analytics experts like NRC Health and Medallia are critical for turning feedback into meaningful action.
“Ultimately, it’s about capturing feedback and behavioral signals across the organization in a way that automatically drives action,” Amber explains.
These collaborations allow healthcare leaders to leverage real-time data, integrate insights across departments, and implement changes that support employees while improving patient care. The result is a cycle of continuous improvement: empowered staff deliver better care, which strengthens trust and satisfaction for patients.
Actionable Strategies for Healthcare Leaders
Healthcare leaders can implement practical strategies to align employee experience with patient experience:
Looking Ahead: A Unified Approach to Healthcare Experience
The future of healthcare depends on integrating employee and patient experience, fostering trust, and designing systems that prioritize human-centered care.
“Moving beyond just thinking about feedback as a measurement tool, to thinking about feedback as a way to provide strategic action.” —Jennifer Baron
“Humanizing those experiences across the care journey.” —Amber Maraccini
“Develop those relationships, develop that trust, and make sure to make that connection.” —Brad Giafaglione
Organizations that empower their employees while listening to patients can deliver experiences that are trusted, memorable, and sustainable. Accordingly, aligning EX and PX isn’t just a strategy—it’s a pathway to better care, higher engagement, and stronger organizational performance.
In 2024, NRC Health announced a strategic partnership with customer and employee experience management leader Medallia. NRC Health’s partnership with Medallia strengthens the organization’s capabilities in consumer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX).
Medallia’s globally-tested technology equips NRC Health with scalable tools that support end-to-end journey listening—illuminating CX blind spots and broad multi-industry EX benchmarks—as well as advanced reporting, embedded action workflows, and sophisticated contact-center offerings.
