by Tony Chen

Cleveland Clinic has hired Dr. Bridgett Duffy to the post of Chief Experience Officer, "a newly created role designed to ensure all aspects of the patient experience at Cleveland Clinic meet the highest standards." Dr. Duffy was previously the Chair of the Brain-Heart Institute at the Cleveland Clinic and an accomplished healthcare consultant.

This "experience designer" job is one of the "hot jobs of 2007" according to Fast Company. Here's Fast Company's take on what the job is really like:

Experience designers go beyond the look of a place, creating a unique experience in which shoppers can immerse themselves. From cellular boutiques to the American Girl doll store on New York's Fifth Avenue, the shops created by an experience designer are often considered works of art; mini universes unto themselves. Experience designers are involved in every aspect of creation -- from choosing accent colors on walls to slanting the windows in the right direction. The next time you go into a boutique and you feel as if you've just had an "experience" -- you have, and someone went to a lot of trouble to make you feel at home.

Now of course, I'm sure Dr. Duffy won't be picking out wall colors. Nonetheless, she will be looking at "small things" that will collectively add up to a patient experience. This is particularly important for Cleveland Clinic, so that patients walking into their Florida site get the same "experience" as those walking into their Cleveland site.

This could be great development for the hospital sector. By definition, hospitals will always be difficult, messy, complex, and scary places to be in. Life and death, disease and sickness, brokenness and fear will always be walking down our bleached hallways. So doing whatever we can do make hospitals as enjoyable (relatively speaking, of course) and unintimidating; whatever we can do to make patients feel at home and to feel like people (On one blog, the comment was "it's about time, that place is a human warehouse!") will go a long way in delighting patients (and as Nick would say, clinical outcomes!). In some sense, this is really Planetree and also the If Disney Ran Your Hospital Series are all about.

Dr. Duffy has her work cut out for her - the patient experience isn't her job - it's everyone's job. She'll be the champion and the cultural architect. She'll also have to be a mountain-mover to change people's behavior in an environment that is structurally centered around functional expertise, not patients.

By the way, Healthleaders has a how-to guide on creating "experiences" in hospitals.