Jennifer Baron, CPXP

Chief Experience Officer
o. 800.388.4264
jbaron@nrchealth.com

As Chief Experience Officer with NRC Health, Jennifer is responsible for leveraging her extensive expertise to deliver innovative solutions and data-driven insights that enhance healthcare experiences. Baron spearheads the organization’s thought leadership and experience strategy to address the unique and evolving needs of NRC Health’s partners.

With over 30 years’ experience in healthcare, Jennifer is passionate about understanding the evolving needs and preferences of consumers, patients and the healthcare workforce. She believes that through this understanding we can more intentionally design and manage experiences to drive better results.

With robust experience in healthcare across two major markets, Baron has enhanced experiences for patients, providers, and the broader workforce. Her leadership journey includes pivotal roles in patient contact center development, physician liaison strategy, telemedicine, and experience design at Indiana University Health. Before joining NRC Health, Baron served as Chief Experience Officer at UC Davis Health. In that role, she led the creation and execution of a multi-year experience roadmap that significantly elevated patient and family experiences while fostering a dynamic and engaging environment for faculty and staff.

Baron is nationally recognized for her work in the development and implementation of a patient and family feedback model that makes it easy for staff and patients to co-design processes impacting care experiences.

Outside of work with NRC Health, Jennifer enjoys reading, playing pickleball, yoga, hiking, and exploring new locations with family and friends.

Baron holds a degree in communications from Ball State University and is a Certified Patient Experience Professional (CPXP). She currently resides in Roseville, California.

Ryan Donohue

Strategic Advisor, Marketing
o. 800.388.4264 | c. 402.450.2991
rdonohue@nrchealth.com

As a Strategic Advisor with NRC Health, Ryan is responsible for leading the Market Experience component of thought leadership. This includes creating, managing, and understanding consumer intelligence across hundreds of markets in the US. With over 18 years of experience, Ryan is passionate about finding fresh stories within massive data sets, understanding what makes the healthcare consumer tick, and ultimately advising clients how to build brands which resonate in their markets with their consumers AKA their future patients. A stronger bond between patient and provider means a better healthcare world for all.

Ryan’s professional qualifications and education include degrees in Marketing and Journalism from the University of Nebraska, where he also minored in English and Public Relations. Ryan has unique healthcare experience related to brand and marketing strategies, the effects of healthcare consumerism, access to care, price transparency, and the consumer-to-patient journey of care.

Ryan has forged his research and experience into Patient No Longer, a book he co-authored with Dr. Steven Klasko of General Catalyst and published by ACHE’s Health Administration Press. Patient No Longer just released its second edition and enjoys a companion podcast of the same name.

Accomplishments in the healthcare industry include:

• Writing and publishing Patient No Longer which serves as the successor of Thru The Patient’s Eyes, the seminal work that created the modern patient-centered care movement
• Creating the BrandArc which was the first nationally syndicated, continuously fielded consumer intelligence tool specifically designed for healthcare brands
• Serving as Faculty and Advisor to The Governance Institute and currently the only NRC Health associate to present consumer intelligence to healthcare leaders and board members

Outside of work with NRC Health, Ryan enjoys the essential task of raising four children ranging in age from thirteen to four, alongside his wife Andrea. In his (rare) spare time, Ryan coaches said children in basketball, plays volleyball with friends, and gardens in a plot that always has a few too many weeds.

Dr. William R. England, Ph.D.

Strategic Analyst
o. 800.388.4264
wengland@nrchealth.com

Dr. England has worked at NRC Health for nine years and most of that work has involved forming strategic partnerships with healthcare organizations in order to help improve experience. Blending tools from survey research, data science, statistics, predictive analytics, and natural language processing, Dr. England helps NRC Health’s partners to understand and amplify their patients’ voices, so various stakeholders from the C-suite to the frontline staff can make sense of, and react to, what people are saying about all aspects of their care.

Dr. England earned his Ph.D. in Educational Evaluation and Research in 2014, from the University of Nebraska. His focus was on using Geographic Information Systems and spatial analytics to analyze, visualize (map), and predict policy outcomes around Nebraska’s communities—in particular, looking for ways to resolve “geographies of inequality.” Schools are not hospitals, but there are many overlapping challenges faced by both, and Dr. England has been able to apply his background and expertise to the study of what it means to deliver high-quality care and great experiences in the healthcare industry.

Outside of working with NRC Health, Dr. England enjoys spending time with his girlfriend, visiting his brother and best friend in Northern California, tinkering around endlessly on an assortment of projects, exercising, and being outdoors.

Sarah Fryda, M.S.

Research Team Manager
o. 800.388.4264
sfryda@nrchealth.com

As a Research Team Manager with NRC Health, Sarah is responsible for leading a team of researchers focused on survey development, Natural Language Processing, and mining patient and consumer trends. With over 18 years of experience at NRC Health, Sarah is passionate about using data to uncover insights and tell compelling stories. Whether it’s through visualization, analysis, or interpretation, she believes that transforming raw numbers into meaningful narratives can drive understanding and impact.

Sarah holds a master’s degree in Survey Research and Methodology from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and has spent several years teaching Marketing Research at a small private college. Passionate about understanding human behavior, she focuses her research on non-response trends and the impact of technology and healthcare disruptors on the human experience. Before joining NRC Health, Sarah worked at a non-profit focused on patient and employee experience measurement among rural hospitals and physicians in Nebraska and also gained valuable experience working in survey interviewing at The Gallup Organization.

Outside of work with NRC Health, Sarah enjoys traveling, crocheting, and spending time outdoors with her family.

Toya Gorley, MBA

Improvement Advisor
o. 800.388.4264
tgorley@nrchealth.com

With more than 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry, Toya is responsible for working with NRC Health’s premier partners to gain greater understanding of pain points in real practice and to develop and deliver improvement resources that help organizations turn aspirations into actions on the front lines.

Toya has a successful track record of working with healthcare executives, physicians, and nursing staff to define and achieve specific business objectives. She also has a passion for improving the experience for patients, families, and healthcare employees.

Toya’s career in patient experience began at Cleveland Clinic where she served as a Project Manager in the Office of Patient Experience and was promoted to Director of Service Excellence. Toya helped to build a start-up patient experience consulting practice that partnered with health systems across the country to develop and implement patient experience strategies.

Toya has a B.S. in business finance and marketing from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, and an M.B.A. from Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, Ohio. She lives in Cleveland, OH with her husband and daughter.

Ashley Nelson, M.S., BSN, RN

Strategic Advisor, Nursing
o. 605.201.2048
anelson1@nrchealth.com

As a Strategic Advisor with NRC Health, Ashley is responsible for turning aspiration into action. Leveraging her clinical expertise and passion for experience, she works collaboratively with partners to help achieve goals through the power of Human Understanding. She is committed to bringing thought leadership, valuable strategies and service to partnerships with healthcare organizations across the country.

Ashley comes from a long line of nurses where she was inspired by and drawn to a career in healthcare. Her career includes 18 years in pediatric nursing, serving as a leader in the areas of compassionate care, education, and patient experience. While she never thought she would leave the bedside, she found great purpose in helping others to understand the magnitude of the overall experience. She emphasizes the importance of the ‘little things’- the basics of human connection and the power they bring to the care experience. Ashley focuses on seeing the individual in front of you, not just the diagnosis in the chart.

While her skill set and knowledge base are rooted in nursing, Ashley has gained a great appreciation for the many teams it takes to deliver an experience where patients feel valued, cared for and listened to. From the front desk to the clinical encounter to the follow up plan and beyond, Ashley understands the importance of every team member delivering on their touch point.

Her knowledge and solution-oriented approach is a helpful asset in developing plans, implementing best practices and achieving success. She works to align with executive strategy by understanding the uniqueness of healthcare organizations and what matters most to the patients they serve. She is adamant about keeping the patient at the heart of healthcare.

Ashley is grateful to be invited into spaces with teams to transform healthcare delivery. She is committed to celebrating exceptional care of today and has an immense drive for elevating the care of tomorrow.

Ashley and her husband Adam live in Harrisburg, SD with their three children. They enjoy spending time by the water and stay busy with many sporting activities, a little shopping and lots of country music.

Michelle Silva, M.A.

Strategic Officer, Consumer Experience
o. 800.388.4264
msilva@nrchealth.com

As a Strategic Advisor for Consumer Experience, Michelle Silva delivers data-driven insights to help NRC Health clients navigate the evolving needs of health consumers. With over 25 years of experience in the medical and health insurance fields – 15 in senior leadership roles – she has built a reputation as a trusted advisor to C-suite leaders and their teams, guiding them in designing human-centered experiences that foster connection, engagement, positive reputation, and long-term growth.

Throughout her career, Michelle has played a pivotal role in shaping and communicating enterprise transformation and strategic decision-making using a stakeholder experience lens. She has helped senior executives navigate high-stakes operational challenges, using data-driven insights to influence key business transformation and growth. Recognizing the growing need for risk mitigation and governance, she also has advised leaders on strategies to assess, address and communicate enterprise risks, strengthening internal controls, driving efficiencies, creating transparency and improving employee experience.

Michelle’s expertise in executive thought leadership has positioned leaders and companies for greater industry recognition through strategies that increased visibility, keynote invitations, media presence, awards and executive promotions. She has also led large-scale enterprise change and crisis communications efforts, aligning leadership teams and employees during times of transition.

In addition to her strategic advisory work, Michelle has built and led high-impact communications, content and marketing strategies, elevating stakeholder engagement and company reputation. She has successfully led cross-functional teams of content strategists, analysts, writers and creatives, fostering a culture of storytelling and innovation. She is known as a master writer, editor and storyteller.

Michelle holds a master’s degree in the history of medicine from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her academic interests include the history of the patient-doctor relationship, the disappearance of the patient voice, disease identity and gender relations. She has been published in several academic journals, including JAMA Surgery and the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. A Certified Career Coach, Michelle is passionate about mentorship and career elevation, particularly for women of color.

Michelle is a devoted cat parent who enjoys traveling with her husband in their 24’ Airstream van, The Silva Bullet, or on their Vespas. They also enjoy world travel, often to watch European soccer matches.