Elevating Patient Care: A Conversation with Jill Anderson, VP of Patient Experience at RWJ Barnabas

The modern healthcare landscape is a study in contradictions: data-driven yet deeply human, technologically advanced yet resource-constrained, mission-oriented yet profit-pressured. At the heart of this tension sits the patient experience—one of the most cited, yet least mastered, priorities for hospital and health system executives. In an era when patients are savvier, staff are stretched, and value-based care penalizes friction, the “how” of delivering consistently positive patient experience is no longer a soft skill—it’s an organizational differentiator.

This is why our recent conversation with Jill Fennimore, MBA, System Vice President, Patient Experience at RWJBarnabas Health, is so timely. Anderson—who also teaches Lean Six Sigma to MHA students at Rutgers—offers an inside look at the mindset, tools, and operational discipline required to elevate patient care, even in sprawling systems with deep complexity. In her own words, she is driven by a simple but powerful belief: “When you really have a passion for what you do and what you love, I don’t see it as a job. It actually energizes me.” Here’s what today’s leaders can learn from Anderson’s approach.

What Defines Exceptional Patient Experience Leadership in 2025?

Effective patient experience leadership requires self-awareness, operational rigor, and values alignment at both personal and organizational levels. In Anderson’s role overseeing patient experience for the largest academic health system in New Jersey—spanning 12 acute care hospitals, 300+ medical groups, and multiple specialized facilities—she emphasizes that leadership begins with clarity of purpose.

“One of the very first activities I had with one of my first executive coaches… was we sat down and we worked on my purpose statement as well as my personal values,” Anderson shares. She distills her guiding principles to five: faith, striving for excellence, analytical thinking, justice/fairness, and altruism. Notably, “my top value is justice or fairness,” she adds, highlighting the need for equitable treatment of patients and staff.

These personal values echo those recently adopted at the system level by RWJBarnabas Health: accountability, compassion, curiosity, empathy, excellence, kindness, respect, and teamwork. “These values really hold strong throughout our organization and really empower us to be able to do what’s best and what’s right for our patients, their companions, and for our team members as well.”

Key Takeaways:

• Leadership in patient experience starts with personal and organizational values alignment.

• Justice and fairness are non-negotiables—especially in diverse communities.

• Leaders must actively define and socialize their values to ground decision-making.

How Do You Drive Patient Experience Across a Large, Complex Health System?

Scaling patient experience improvement requires both centralized vision and system-wide operationalization, supported by data, process, and cross-functional collaboration. Anderson’s approach at RWJBarnabas Health spans eight “buckets” of responsibility, with each aligned to a patient- or staff-facing pain point.

Core Areas of Patient Experience Oversight

1. HCAPS Task Force: Collaborative, multidisciplinary group driving survey strategy and analysis.

2. Patient Voice: Oversight of Press Ganey contracts for standardized patient feedback.

3. Language Services: Over 9 million minutes of interpretation provided in 2023, ensuring equity for Limited English Proficiency (LEP) patients.

4. Patient Bill of Rights: Systematic approach to managing complaints, grievances, and compliments.

5. Technology Enablement: Digital rounding tools for standardized data collection and real-time insights.

6. High Reliability & Safety Culture: Focus on “zero emotional harm” and compassionate care.

7. Talent Pipeline: Mentorship of over 200 interns, fostering the next generation of leaders.

8. Leadership Development: Coaching and support for patient experience leaders at every site.

“With the rounding tool… now across the system everybody asks the same questions, which gives us a bullet load of data,” Anderson explains. “It’s the right thing to do for our patients and nurse leaders—and the data piece is incredible to glean what are we doing wrong, what are we doing right, and the recognition piece is just so powerful.”

Practical Steps:

• Centralize survey strategy (e.g., HCAPS) to enable apples-to-apples benchmarking.

• Standardize rounding and feedback collection, using digital tools.

• Track every complaint and compliment—operational transparency is non-negotiable.

• View language access as a quality and equity imperative, not a compliance afterthought.

What Values and Behaviors Drive Team Performance and Patient Outcomes?

Explicitly defined values are a strategic asset, guiding everyday behaviors and tough decisions. Anderson notes that RWJBarnabas Health’s new system-wide values are not just aspirational—they’re operationalized in every unit, at every site.

“Ensuring that we provide exceptional outcomes not only to our patients, not only to their companions, and to each other as team members—these values really hold strong throughout our organization,” she says.

Anderson’s Personal Values Checklist:

• Faith

• Excellence

• Analytical Thinking

• Justice/Fairness

• Altruism

RWJBarnabas System Values:

• Accountability

• Compassion

• Curiosity

• Empathy

• Excellence

• Kindness

• Respect

• Teamwork

Anderson recommends every leader go through a values identification exercise, referencing Brené Brown’s popular values list as a starting point: “Take that list, socialize it with family members, fellow co-workers, whoever is in your life… For me, it makes me a stronger leader, because I know when something disturbs me, I go back to my values list.”

Actionable Tip:
If you haven’t clarified your own leadership values, do so now. Use your list to inform both personal and organizational decisions.

How Has Technology Enabled Transformation in Patient Experience?

Moving from paper to digital is about more than efficiency—it’s about transparency, standardization, and actionable insights. Anderson led the multi-year implementation of a digital rounding tool (from HON), replacing inconsistent, paper-based surveys.

“Prior to us purchasing the rounding tool, everything was done paper… Massive variation across the system,” she recalls. Now, standardized digital templates enable nurse leaders and patient experience staff to collect and act on real-time feedback, directly linking data to behavioral change.

Key Digital Templates Implemented:

• Nurse Leader Rounding Template

• Patient Experience Rounding Template

• Senior Leader Rounding Template

• Provider Coaching Validation Template

The results? “Everybody asks the same questions, which gives us a bullet load of data… [And] the recognition piece is just so powerful—a lot of what we do is looking at changing behaviors and it’s like kids; we want to reward those behaviors that are positive so that they continuously perform those behaviors.”

Best Practices:

• Standardize digital tools across all sites for consistent measurement.

• Use data to drive not only quality improvement but also recognition.

• Make technology adoption a team sport: engage nurse leaders, providers, and senior leadership.

What Are the Hardest Patient Complaints—and How Do You Address Them?

Billing concerns are the number one source of patient complaints at RWJBarnabas Health. Anderson is candid: “Our top concern that we hear from patients is regarding billing… Sometimes it’s a billing concern related to revenue cycle, like, ‘I don’t understand why my insurance didn’t pay for this,’ or, ‘Why did I receive three bills?’”

To address this, Anderson’s team meets regularly with billing, patient access, and financial services. Together, they review complaint data, investigate root causes, and adjust communication and processes. “I’m confident with our newly launched Epic [EHR] that that technology will help to mitigate some of these concerns.”

Top Categories of Complaints:

1. Billing and Revenue Cycle

2. Care and Treatment Clarity

3. Operational Inefficiency

4. Policy Misalignment (e.g., contraband incidents)

Key Tactics:

• Establish regular cross-functional meetings to review and address complaints.

• Standardize billing communication and educate patients on what to expect.

• Leverage EHR and digital tools to streamline and clarify billing processes.

Reality Check:
No system is perfect. “We fail our patients pretty regularly because of many different reasons… Our striving to be a zero-defect, zero-harm facility under our high reliability umbrella is always going to keep us busy.”

How Do You Build a Culture of Empathy—Not Just Compassion—Among Providers?

Empathy is teachable and measurable, and essential for exceptional patient experience. Anderson details a pioneering initiative: a physician coaching program in partnership with Heron Consulting Group.

“For the first time at the system level, we invested in our doctors and we had 39 doctors that went through this coaching program. Collectively, we came up with six key concepts and behaviors. For example, the first behavior is framing the encounter… The second is empathy and compassion.”

Physician Coaching Program: Six Key Behaviors

1. Framing the Encounter

2. Empathy and Compassion

3. (Four additional behaviors not detailed, but developed and measured.)

The program uses a real-time coaching and validation tool. Coaches observe physicians, provide instant feedback, and reinforce both what is done and how it’s done.

“There’s a difference between empathy and compassion. Compassion is the doing piece… but maybe that empathetic statement goes a long way like, ‘Wow, I can really hear that this is important to you, and it’s amazing that you’re such a provider for your family.’ Simple sentences like that make a huge difference.”

Operational Lesson:

• Don’t just train for clinical competence—train for empathetic communication.

• Use data-driven feedback tools to reinforce both “hard” and “soft” skills.

• Start even if you’re only “50% ready”—“Sometimes in healthcare we handcuff ourselves, thinking it has to be perfect… If you have a good, solid concept, do it.”

How Does Emotional Intelligence Reshape Patient and Staff Journeys?

Incorporating emotion into process mapping uncovers hidden pain points and reveals new opportunities to reduce suffering. Anderson’s story of collaborating with Patient and Family Advisory Councils (PFAC) illustrates the power of ethnographic data:

“My very first patient experience conference was at the Cleveland Clinic… This hospital talked about ethnographic data. It took the process map and added a layer of emotions… Knowing that information and how that mother and father felt in that time and the actions they took helped this healthcare system to design and create the appropriate tactics to make sure it was a less suffering position for them.”

Anderson developed “emotion-augmented” journey maps for patients, doctors, and nurses. The findings?

• Patients were highly emotional throughout.

• Doctors compartmentalized emotion, focusing on action during acute phases, with emotion surfacing later.

• Nurses experienced emotion throughout but often frustration related to operational inefficiencies.

Bottom Line:

• Journey mapping is not just about process; it’s about feelings.

• Cross-perspective empathy—patients understanding clinicians, and vice versa—reduces friction and increases satisfaction.

What Should Patients and Communities Understand About Hospitals Today?

Patients and families should recognize the complex, often invisible, realities faced by healthcare workers. Anderson advocates for mutual empathy: “My wish would be that not only do our patients understand what’s going on in the doctor’s mind and the nurse’s mind, but the doctor understands what’s going on in the patient’s mind.”

She recounts a PFAC member’s experience, mapping every step and emotion from a fall at home to discharge. “That was so powerful, just to learn that emotional journey. It really will help mitigate some of the suffering that we all go through in healthcare, have it be the patients, their companions, or our staff.”

Takeaway: The New Playbook for Patient Experience Leadership

Exceptional patient experience is built—not wished for—through intentional leadership, standardized process, technology enablement, and above all, empathy. As Anderson’s career and philosophy demonstrate, leading patient experience in 2025 is not just about “checking the box” on HCAPS scores. It’s about aligning organizational values, empowering staff, leveraging data, and teaching empathy as a core skill.

“Let’s utilize our humanity in this together… You have a big heart and you do care. So, let’s be intentional and build systems that support both patients and those who care for them.”

Actionable Insight:
If you’re leading or influencing patient experience in your organization, audit your current practices against Anderson’s playbook:

• Are your values clear and lived?

• Are your tools standardized, digital, and system-wide?

• Do you measure both patient and employee experience?

• Do you coach for empathy, not just competence?

The patient—and the future of your organization—will thank you.