What Healthcare Leaders Miss When They've Never Been the Patient | Stephanie Abbott

In this episode of Humanizing Healthcare, we speak with Stephanie Abbott — author, speaker, and former Chief Experience Officer — about what healthcare leaders miss when they've only ever seen the system from the inside. Stephanie spent years leading patient experience strategy at major health systems, including Adventist Health. She understood patient experience intellectually. Then she became a cancer patient — and realized how much she didn't know. She shares what it felt like to spend 63 days not knowing if she would survive, and 83 days waiting to start treatment. She explains why those gaps weren't failures of compassion — they were failures of design. And why fixing them requires more than launching a new PX program. This conversation gets into the difference between measuring satisfaction and understanding trust, why employee experience and patient experience can't be separated, and what it actually takes for leaders to build systems where compassion is sustainable — not just expected. If you want to understand what humanizing healthcare really demands of its leaders, this is the episode. 🎧 Take a listen.Key Takeaways 02:50 Stephanie's path from healthcare operations to patient experience leadership 04:15 What becoming a cancer patient revealed that years of executive experience didn't 05:55 The 63 days, the 83 days, and what they say about system design08:45 The difference between launching PX programs and actually transforming culture 12:45 Why employee experience sets the ceiling for patient experience 10:05 How leaders should be interpreting experience data and metrics 17:10 What healthcare needs to look like in the next 5–10 years 24:45 Stephanie's book: Buried or PlantedAdditional ResourcesStephanie's book: Buried or Planted Additional Resources: Stephanie Abbott's book — Buried or Planted: https://www.amazon.com/Buried-Planted-Insights-Healthcare-Executives/dp/B0D4Q9QM78 Stephanie Abbott's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-s-abbott/ hxology: https://www.hxology.com/ Story Submission Link for New Book: https://forms.gle/32juxZ7aYFSuugBi7 Fidelum Health LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fidelum-health/ Planetree LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/planetree/ ---- Unlock the power of our HUMAN Brand™ insights model for enhanced patient, team member, and care provider experiences: https://fidelumhealth.com/ Learn how Planetree can help your organization deliver person-centered care at: https://www.planetree.org/