Each year, Patient Experience Week (April 28 to May 2) offers us a chance to pause and celebrate the many people at Stony Brook Medicine who create moments of compassion, comfort and connection every day. Whether you provide direct care or support behind the scenes, your role matters deeply — and during Patient Experience Week, we shine a spotlight on you.
At Stony Brook Medicine, we believe We Are the Patient Experience. Every interaction — every conversation, every gesture — has the power to shape how our patients and their families feel in our care. And based on the countless stories we hear from patients, the experience you’re creating is one of kindness, respect and trust.
This year, Patient Experience Week kicks off three weeks of celebration across Stony Brook Medicine, followed by Nurses Week and Hospital Week. It’s a perfect time to reflect on how we’re strengthening the care experience — especially as the national Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) Hospital Survey evolved in 2025 to include new dimensions such as care coordination, restfulness of the hospital environment and team communication with families and caregivers. Fortunately, this is work we’ve already been prioritizing — and we’re making meaningful progress.
Over the past year, Nicole Rossol, Chief Patient Experience Officer, and Dr. Jonathan Buscaglia, Chief Medical Officer, led a campus-wide conversation with our physicians about why the patient experience and communication with our patients matter more than ever. Through a series of grand rounds, they shared data, insights and personal stories — from the perspectives of both the patient and provider. Together with our Hospitalist Division, we’ve been deepening the practice of compassionate, connected care and coaching physicians to build trust in those critical first moments of a patient interaction.
Our Simulation Lab has played a powerful role in this effort. With input from our Patient and Family Advisory Councils, we’ve developed real-life communication scenarios that bring together nursing and physician teams to work with standardized patients. These sessions focus not only on what we say — but how we say it, how we listen and how we work together. Because patients don’t just hear our words; they feel the quality of our collaboration.
Of course, this commitment to communication is long-standing in our nursing community, where compassionate care is embedded in training and practice models like Jean Watson’s theory of human caring. Our nurses have been teaching, coaching and leading compassionate, connected care since 2019 — and now, more than ever, we’re seeing a true team-based approach to improving the patient experience across disciplines. The Division of Nursing along with the Departments of Quality, Patient Advocacy, Language Access and Environment of Care recently collaborated on a Patient Experience Task Force. Together, they redesigned and implemented proactive rounding using the iRound platform technology to focus on real-time interventions designed to improve the quality, safety and experience of care.
Throughout Patient Experience Week, we invite you to participate in events designed to reflect and recharge. Please join us on Monday, April 28, as we host an Administrative Grand Rounds featuring our Patient and Family Advisors and hear their stories about “What Matters Most” to them in their healthcare experiences. Other events during the week include our Food Farmacy Food Drive, Staff Wellness Rounds our Patient Experience Showcase and our upcoming Schwartz Rounds. There are many ways to honor the work and the why behind it. Visit ThePulse for a complete calendar of events.
To each member of the Stony Brook Medicine community — thank you. Thank you for the compassion you show. Thank you for making our patients feel heard, respected, well cared for and safe. You are the reason our patients return, refer others and trust us with their care. You are the patient experience.
Let’s celebrate that as a team — together.