The trust factor: Elevating patient experience in 2025 and beyond

Published in Becker's Hospital Review

Trust is at the core of every meaningful healthcare interaction. As patient expectations continue to evolve, healthcare organizations must recognize trust as a strategic imperative, not just a marketing initiative. In a recent Becker's Healthcare Podcastepisode, Jennifer Baron, Chief Experience Officer at NRC Health, and Kathryn Peisert, Editor-in-Chief and Senior Director of The Governance Institute, explored how health systems can strengthen trust to enhance patient experience, workforce engagement, and overall outcomes.

NRC Health's 2025 Experience Perspective underscores the growing importance of trust in healthcare. Their research identified three key drivers of trust:

• Reliability-Ensuring patients can access care in a way that meets their preferences (e.g., in-person vs. virtual appointments).
• Competence-Delivering high-quality, informed, and efficient care.
• Respect-Treating patients and employees with dignity and understanding their unique needs.

With healthcare misinformation and the underfunding of public health initiatives on the rise, hospitals and health systems must take an active role in educating the public and meeting consumers where they are, whether that's through social media, patient portals, or even AI-driven search queries.

Organizations that treat trust as a core business strategy rather than a standalone initiative are seeing measurable improvements in both patient and workforce engagement. Kathryn and Jennifer emphasize the importance of:

• Linking consumer, patient, and employee experience through intentional goals and trust-driven strategies.
• Ensuring trust is championed by leadership, particularly the CEO, who can serve as a "Trust Ambassador" within the organization.
• Using trust metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS) and workforce trust surveys to track and improve relationships with both patients and employees.

NRC Health's research found that patients who highly trust their healthcare provider are 300% more likelyto recommend them, while employees who trust their organization are 15 times more likely to recommend it as a place to receive care.

As healthcare competition intensifies, trust is becoming a differentiator not just in patient retention, but also in workforce recruitment and retention. By investing in continuous listening strategies and reinforcing trust across all stakeholders, health systems can ensure they are evolving in alignment with patient and employee expectations.

The full 2025 Experience Perspective report from NRC Health is available here.

Listen to the full Becker's Healthcare Podcast episodefor more expert insights!