Senior Patient Experience Business Partner

Be inspired. Be valued. Belong. 

At Emory Healthcare we fuel your professional journey with better benefits, valuable resources, ongoing mentorship and leadership programs for all types of jobs, and a supportive environment that enables you to reach new heights in your career and be what you want to be.  We provide:

• Comprehensive health benefits that start day 1
• Student Loan Repayment Assistance & Reimbursement Programs
• Family-focused benefits
• Wellness incentives
• Ongoing mentorship, development, leadership programs...and more!

Travel between Operating Units and Emory Affiliated Sites required

Position Summary:

This role plays a key role in driving patient experience-focused improvement initiatives across the organization. This advanced-level position serves as a strategic partner to division and operating unit leadership teams to align patient experience improvement efforts to system and operating unit-level goals, operating plans and priorities. With a solid foundation in human-centered design strategies and performance improvement methodologies, this role partners with clinical and operations leaders to assess key patient experience metrics, assess drivers at the entity and department-level to support cross-functional teams with experience improvement and change management projects. The Senior Business Partner leverages human-centered design and patient experience evidence-based practices to independently manage moderate-to-complex projects to ensure optimal patient experience performance at the department and unit level and serves as a trusted and knowledgeable advisor on strategies to improve performance along key drivers.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Strategic Partnership

• Build relationships with senior leaders to establish credibility as a trusted advisor to influence and support key strategic and operational decisions related to patient experience.
• In conjunction with division patient experience, clinical and operational leadership, identifies opportunity units within the operating unit based on current and historical data.
• Partners with local leadership to engage team members and volunteers for improvement initiatives.
• Cultivate collaborative relationships with key leaders to facilitate and co-design interventions in support of the patient experience playbook that promotes team engagement, retention, multi-disciplinary collaboration, healthy work environments, and compassionate, timely communication with patients and caregivers.
• Lead and effectively champion frontline and cross-team collaborations and accountability to hardwire improvements in alignment with the system's four cultural beliefs, through effective listening, identifying and collaboratively problem-solving to address gaps in desired culture with physicians, leaders, staff and patient family advisors.
• Create and maintain product/project management and strategy deliverables to align on vision, future state workflows/processes, etc. by gathering input from key stakeholders including our informatics teams
• Act as an advisor on all matters related to best practices in human-centered design, patient experience, data strategy and change management.
• Collaborate with operating unit leaders to assess key performance indicators, driver and outcome metrics to measure performance, and provide data visualization to support initiatives.
• Provide routine updates on performance to divisional senior leadership teams with actionable recommendations to enhance metrics.

Experience Improvement Design & Management

• Collaborate with interdisciplinary teams to drive patient experience-based improvement initiatives.
• Performs gap analyses, patient journey mapping, and leads multiple performance improvement tests of change with a human-centered design lens.
• Identify trends, areas of concern, and opportunities for improvement, and provide actionable insight for FY improvement goals.
• Co-designs culture change strategies with stakeholders to achieve organizational goals.
• Utilize a structured methodology to analyze local processes and barriers to achieving ideal outcomes, facilitate a co-designed intervention to implement recommended improvements to advance towards a shared vision of a future state, and coordinate change implementation through individual and team facilitation.
• Independently manage project timelines, resources, and milestones for experience improvement initiatives.
• Collaborate with leadership and stakeholders to define project goals, scope, and deliverables, ensuring alignment with organizational objectives.
• Lead and support moderate-to-complex projects to support hardwiring of evidence-based best practices to support patient satisfaction metrics and foster a culture of compassion.

Change Management

• Assess organizational and team readiness for change, conduct stakeholder mapping, and identify potential risks.
• Leverage human-centered design principles and methodologies (such as Lean/Six Sigma, TeamSTEPPS, IDEO or Luma) for shared problem-solving and implementation planning, with expertise in advancing concepts such as kaizen, value stream analysis and patient journey mapping.
• Act as a mentor to teams to help them understand and practice these skills to empower them to build on success to achieve their goals.
• Strategize with project team to understand areas of resistance and co-design interventions to achieve buy-in and hardwire culture adoption of changes.
• Creating communication and training plans to support the change initiative.
• Provide ongoing partnership with teams to monitor the progress and course correct as needed as part of continuous process improvement.

Advanced Data Analysis & Visualization:

• Demonstrates proficiency in qualitative and quantitative patient experience data collection, analysis, and reporting, including focus groups.
• Continually monitors patient experience data and analyzes results, collects, and reports feedback, conducts gap analyses, identifies critical factors for success, and convenes multidisciplinary teams for process improvement initiatives.
• Conduct and facilitate in-depth workflow analyses, time studies, and other quantitative and qualitative data collection with cross-discipline teams.
• Apply statistical techniques to analyze data, create advanced process maps, generate Pareto charts, pivot tables, develop run/control charts to identify trends and opportunities for improvement and establish statistical significance for causal factors.
• Leverage existing data sets to conduct correlation analyses to identify unit-level personae for intervention development.
• Use AI and other LLM tools to derive insights from high volume of qualitative feedback.
• Ability to create clear and impactful data visualizations and reports to communicate product performance and insights.
• Ability to effectively communicate complex information to a broad range of stakeholders to drive decision-making.

Growth Mindset

• Participates and initiates research studies, actively pursues publications, and/or national presentations at conferences.
• Works with manager to formulate plan for personal professional development and identify needed resources for training.
• Attends meetings, huddles, and educational in-services as appropriate.
• Actively participates in improvement projects that improve workflows, efficiency, accuracy, and quality of care experience.
• Participates in professional activities and organizations to maintain knowledge of current trends, practices, and developments.

Other Duties as Assigned.

Travel:

• Travel between Operating Units and Emory Affiliated Sites required

Work Type:

• Hybrid employee - splits time between working remotely and working in the office.

MINIMUM REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Education: Bachelor's degree administration, industrial engineering, or public health

Experience:

• 3-5 years of experience in process improvement or collective impact implementations.

Skills:

• Proficient in Process Improvement and/or Human-Centered Design methodologies with a demonstrated ability to apply these concepts in complex settings.
• Strong analytical and statistical skills, with experience in data analysis tools such as Excel, Tableau, SaaS, PowerBI, or similar software.
• Excellent project management skills with the ability to independently manage multiple projects and prioritize effectively.
• Advanced communication and interpersonal skills, with experience presenting to leadership and cross-functional teams with strong skills in Microsoft Office Suite.

Competencies:

• Leadership: Demonstrated ability to lead projects and collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams at all organizational levels.
• Relationship Builder: Adept in building trust among a broad cross section of personalities and experiences to align around common goals.
• Change Agent: Keen level of emotional intelligence to understand and overcome resistance from stakeholders to achieve buy-in and anticipate future needs to support hardwiring of practices.
• Critical Thinking: Advanced problem-solving skills, with the ability to identify root causes, develop actionable insights, and implement sustainable improvements.
• Adaptability: Comfortable managing change in a dynamic healthcare environment and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
• Results-Oriented: Proven track record of delivering measurable improvements in operational efficiency, patient outcomes, and resource utilization

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Education: Master's degree in healthcare administration, industrial engineering, or public health preferred.
• Experience: 7 years experience in process improvement or collective impact implementations in a healthcare or public health environment
• Certifications: Lean/Six Sigma Green Belt, Luma, TeamSTEPPS, or IDEO certification preferred.

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS (Medium Max 25lbs): up to 25 lbs., 0-33% of the work day (occasionally) Lifting 25 lbs. max; Carrying of objects up to 25 lbs.; Occasional to frequent standing & walking, Occasional sitting, Close eye work (computers, typing, reading, writing), Physical demands may vary depending on assigned work area and work tasks.

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS: Factors affecting environmental conditions may vary depending on the assigned work area and tasks. Environmental exposures include but are not limited to: Blood-borne pathogen exposure, Bio-hazardous waste chemicals/gases/fumes/vapors, Communicable diseases, Electrical shock, Floor Surfaces, Hot/Cold Temperatures, Indoor/Outdoor conditions, Latex, Lighting, Patient care/handling injuries, Radiation, Shift work, Travel may be required. Use of personal protective equipment, including respirators, environmental conditions may vary depending on assigned work area and work tasks.

Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, protected veteran status or other characteristics protected by state or federal law.

ACCOMMODATIONS: EHC will provide reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities upon request. To request this document in an alternate format or to request a reasonable accommodation, please contact the Office of Leave and Accommodations.  

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS: (Medium-Heavy) 36-75 lbs., 0-33% of the work day (occasionally); 20-35 lbs., 34-66% of the workday; (frequently); 10-20 lbs., 67-100% of the workday (constantly); Lifting 75 lbs. max; Carrying of objects up to 35 lbs.; Occasional to frequent standing & walking; Occasional sitting; Close eye work (computers, typing, reading, writing); Physical demands may vary depending on assigned work area and work tasks. 
 
ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS: Factors affecting environmental conditions may vary depending on the assigned work area and tasks. Environmental exposures include, but are not limited to: Blood-borne pathogen exposure; Bio-hazardous waste Chemicals/gases/fumes/vapors; Communicable diseases; Electrical shock; Floor Surfaces; Hot/Cold Temperatures; Indoor/Outdoor conditions; Latex; Lighting; Patient care/handling injuries; Radiation; Shift work; Travel may be required; Use of personal protective equipment, including respirators; environmental conditions may vary depending on assigned work area and work tasks.