4 “Musts” for the Experience Movement: A Call to Action

by Jason A. Wolf, Ph.D., CPXP

I start off this post acknowledging this moment. As we close Patient Experience Week 2026 and celebrate the boundless and significant efforts we have seen take place around the world the last few days. More importantly, these efforts honor all that so many do every day of the year to ensure experience excellence.

I also post this just after the latest release of Patient Experience Journal. Yesterday we published Volume 13, Issue 1, the largest issue to ever grace the virtual pages of PXJ. It included 42 articles, from almost 200 authors, and encompassed 460 pages. More so it reflects the tapestry of voices that comprise our community, The Beryl Institute community.

To me it is this foundation of community that makes PXJ unique. While it remains a rigorous academic publication, it reflects the rich and diverse voice of our global community. And its impact is in more than just a ‘factor’, it is in the actual application to practice in impacting lives in healthcare organizations around the world that PXJ truly represents in every word.

With that I asked myself, what is the story we have told on the pages and more so, what have I as founding editor, hoped that we relate in what we publish. So, I ran a little exercise, of “self-reflection” as I was curious what an AI engine would find in the themes I have tried to share in PXJ over the last 12 years. I asked it to review the almost 50 articles I have authored or contributed too and I was inspired to see such clarity in the themes that emerged.

So, as we close PX week and celebrate the launch of Volume 13, I offer 4 of those key themes that have framed my call to action for our community. Items I believe if we continue to push forward on together will help us on our journey to transforming human experience worldwide. I invite you to consider them in how you step forward as well.

I suggest we MUST:

• Move from conversation to action on experience. This is a mandate for execution and a call to embed experience intent in daily practices, systems, and leadership decisions. It is a choice to step forward in action with experience not as an ideal, but a strategic imperative in all we do.
• Engage and elevate a broad inclusive range of voices and then work to co-create the future together. This is a call to expand who is included in the experience conversation—and actively involve them. It is a call to democratize the experience movement and ensure everyone is heard and can contribute.
• Sustain an unwavering commitment to our core purpose: we are human beings caring for human beings. A clarity of purpose is a foundation for shared action. It is an anchor that provides moral clarity and focus on how we step forward. It reminds us that we cannot over mechanize work that is fundamentally human, even in our need to manage the complex and dynamic of healthcare overall. And purpose is not just a philosophy; it is the guardrail to ensure sustained success.
• Challenge the status quo and step forward with agility. Those who have committed to an experience mindset and who have chosen to engage in this movement have always seen the need to push back on traditional boundaries. We are also mindful that you do not lead with change for change sake, but rather with a mindset of purposeful and continuous improvement. We must ask, how can my actions, my ideas leave things better then they we before? Experience is NOT about rinse, wash, and repeat, but rather about meeting people where they are, as who they are, and ensure how we act honors that uniqueness in every moment. Yes, we need process and protocol to guide us, but they should never lead us.

These ideas are not only themes I have seen, written about, and shared over the years, they are real, practical and actionable steps I encourage us all to consider in every moment, every encounter, every day, in our commitment to transforming human experience. We can and must do this as individuals who believe in this movement. We also can and must inspire our organizations to this work with this same commitment to purpose. We do so for those we serve, all who show up to serve, and the communities we have the privilege to serve each and every day. That is the human experience in action.

The choices we make matter!

I have always said the ultimate secret to experience excellence isn’t a process or practice, it’s about one thing – CHOICE. The choices we make matter! And we can, we must, choose wisely. If we do, the world will be better for it.

Happy Patient Experience Week!