What if the best patient experience starts with taking care of your people first?

In this episode of "WorkPossible," Elaine and Hattie get into conversation with Sven Gierlinger, Chief Experience Officer at Northwell Health, one of the largest and most progressive health systems in the United States. But Sven's impact goes far beyond patient experience. He's a powerful advocate for something many leaders talk about but rarely act on: the unbreakable connection between exceptional employee experience and exceptional customer, or in this case patient, experience.

Drawing from three decades across hospitality, the Ritz-Carlton, and 17 years in healthcare, Sven brings a unique perspective shaped by a profound personal experience. When he was paralyzed by Guillain-Barré Syndrome, he learned firsthand what truly matters in healthcare - the human connection. Now, he channels that lived experience into transforming how organisations think about care, culture, and what's possible when leaders prioritise their people.

This conversation reveals how Northwell went from foundational culture work to creating award-winning innovations like Buddy Curtain, a brilliant idea from a housekeeper that saved Northwell millions of dollars and became a business, and a Shark Tank-style competition that unlocks ideas from every corner of the organisation – two winners are picked and each of them get awarded with $500,000 to develop their idea. But more importantly, it's about reimagining leadership itself: getting off the executive floor, observing what's happening from a patient perspective, listening at the front lines, and building psychological safety where authenticity thrives over scripts.

Discover what happens when you stop treating patient and employee experience as separate priorities and start seeing them as inseparable forces. When your frontline people feel supported, valued, and heard, they show up differently. And that changes everything.

Additional Resources:

Connect with Sven on LinkedIn

Connect with Hattie on LinkedIn

Connect with Elaine on LinkedIn

Learn more about Fauna

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Follow PeopleForward Network on LinkedIn

Learn more about PeopleForward Network

Key Takeaways:

• You can't script empathy into burned-out teams.
• Great patient care starts with supported staff.
• Frontline ideas can spark system-wide innovation.
• Authenticity beats perfection in leadership.
• Culture change begins with proximity, not hierarchy.