Career Exploration Beyond the Bedside

January 1, 2025

Happy New Year and welcome to this edition of The Nontraditional Nurse Newsletter!

The Nontraditional Nurse spotlight

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What if patient experience wasn’t just a department — but a mission?

This month, I sat down with Kris Baird, RN, a former bedside nurse turned nationally recognized leader in patient experience, healthcare culture, and leadership development. As the founder and CEO of Baird Group, Kris has spent decades helping healthcare organizations move from “checking the box” to truly transforming how care is delivered and felt.

In our conversation, we talk about how her clinical background shaped her work, the difference between entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship in nursing, and why patient experience goes far beyond satisfaction scores. If you’ve ever wanted to make a bigger impact in healthcare — beyond the bedside — this episode is for you.

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Key Takeaways

Patient experience is bigger than satisfaction scores.

It’s not just about a smile at discharge — it’s every single touchpoint, from the front desk to follow-up. True patient experience is built moment by moment, by every person in the organization.
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​Nurses have a frontline view of what patients actually need.

Kris credits her bedside experience for giving her insight into both clinical care and the emotional needs of patients. That dual awareness is what makes nurses such powerful advocates for culture change.
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​ Leadership sets the tone — for better or worse.

When healthcare culture is broken, it’s almost always a leadership issue. Organizations that invest in training, communication, and accountability see the biggest shifts in patient experience.
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​You don’t need permission to start something.

Whether it’s launching a new program inside your organization or starting your own business, Kris encourages nurses to stop waiting for someone else to create the perfect role — and start building it themselves.
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​Intrapreneurship can be a bridge to entrepreneurship.

Kris’s early innovation work happened inside organizations — creating new programs, solving big problems, and learning how to lead — before she launched Baird Group. That mindset shift can be a stepping stone to going out on your own.

Career Deep Dive

The Patient Experience Domain

Patient experience leadership focuses on shaping how patients feel during their healthcare journey — not just clinically, but emotionally. It’s about improving communication, empathy, consistency, and trust at every touchpoint. These leaders look at the entire patient journey and work across departments to fix friction points, train staff, and build a culture that aligns with the organization’s mission.

Some roles are internal, like Director of Patient Experience, Culture & Engagement Consultant, or Chief Experience Officer. Others — like Kris — work independently or run consulting firms that support multiple healthcare organizations.

In all of these roles, the goal is the same: to create a healthcare experience that’s not only clinically excellent, but also deeply human.
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“ Patient experience is really the culmination of every single touch point that a consumer experiences. — Kris Baird

Perks

• Use your clinical background in a new way: Your time at the bedside gives you real insight into what patients need, both emotionally and practically. This role lets you scale that impact system-wide.
• You can create real change: Whether it’s improving communication, revamping onboarding, or coaching leaders, you’re in a position to make care better for patients and staff.
• It’s a great fit if you like solving problems. Every day is different. You’re constantly identifying gaps, designing solutions, and finding ways to improve the overall experience.
• You’re not stuck in a silo. You’ll work with leaders, nurses, tech teams, HR — basically anyone who touches the patient journey. It’s collaborative and dynamic.
• Professional growth: Research experience can also open doors to roles in pharma, biotech, project management, education, and more.
• It opens the door to entrepreneurship: After learning about the patient experience space, you could end up consulting or starting their own business down the line. Your experience becomes something you can build on.

Challenges

• Culture change is slow: You might see the problems clearly, but that doesn’t mean leadership is ready to fix them. It takes time, strategy, and a whole lot of patience.
• You’ll need to be okay not being everyone’s favorite: When you’re pushing for change, especially around accountability or communication, not everyone’s going to love it and there may be pushback. And that’s okay.
• You might be the only nurse at the table: It’s not uncommon to find yourself in meetings with execs, data analysts, or non-clinical teams. You’ll need to learn how to translate your nursing experience in a way they understand and respect.
• Success isn’t always easy to measure: When you’re fixing culture and communication, progress can feel slow or hard to quantify — especially in systems focused on metrics.
• You’ll have to keep learning: Leadership, communication, and change management are skills — and they don’t come with your license. But they are learnable if you’re willing to grow.

Work-life balance

Work-life balance in patient experience roles can vary a lot depending on the setting. If you’re in-house at a hospital or health system, you’ll likely work a standard business schedule — no nights, weekends, or holidays. That alone can be life-changing if you’re used to 12-hour shifts and being on your feet nonstop.

The pace is different, too. It’s less physical, but it can be mentally draining — especially if you’re dealing with culture issues, communication breakdowns, or leadership challenges. You might spend more time in meetings and behind a computer, which is a big shift from bedside life.

For nurses who eventually move into consulting or run their own patient experience businesses (like Kris), there’s even more flexibility — but also more responsibility. You’re managing your own schedule, but you’re also managing your own business.

Bottom line: it’s a more sustainable pace for a lot of nurses, but it’s not always less demanding. Just demanding in a different way.

Nursing Skills that Translate

You don’t need a business degree to be a part of the patient experience space. You already have a ton of skills from the bedside that carry over — and Kris highlighted some of the most important:

Pattern recognition​
Nurses are trained to notice subtle shifts — in vitals, in behavior, in tone. That same skill helps you spot gaps in communication, workflow, or culture.

Communication under pressure​
Whether it’s calming a panicked patient or navigating a tough conversation with a family member, you know how to stay clear and focused when things get tense. This can be a huge asset when coaching teams or addressing system breakdowns.

Building trust quickly
​Kris shared how bedside nursing taught her to earn trust fast, and that’s essential when you’re leading change. People need to feel seen and safe to buy into new ideas.

Advocacy​
You’ve spent your career advocating for patients. In this work, you’re also advocating for staff — and for changes that make care safer, smoother, and more compassionate.

Process improvement instincts
​If you’ve ever created a workaround or fixed a broken process on the fly, congratulations — you’ve done informal systems thinking. This role lets you formalize that work and actually implement solutions.

Leadership without a title​
Nurses lead every day, whether or not they’re in charge. Patient experience work taps into that same ability to guide, influence, and drive things forward — even when it’s hard.

How Much Experience Do you Need?

There’s no single path into this space, but most patient experience and culture leadership roles look for nurses with at least a few years of clinical experience — especially in roles where you’ve seen patterns, coached peers, or identified system gaps.

If you’ve ever precepted, led huddles, sat on a unit council, or spoken up about process issues? That counts. Leadership titles are helpful, but not required. What matters is that you can connect your bedside experience to broader organizational challenges — and speak the language of both clinical staff and administration.

Some roles may prefer a background in quality, education, or leadership, but don’t let that stop you. Start with what you’ve already done — and build from there.

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Getting Started:

You don’t need to wait for a perfect job posting to step into this work. Here are a few ways to get started, even if you’re still at the bedside:
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​Start where you are.
​Look for opportunities to improve communication, teamwork, or patient satisfaction on your unit. Lead a small project. Join a committee. These are real experience builders — and interview gold. (Make sure to keep documentation of results!)

Get curious about your organization’s patient experience strategy.
​Read your hospital’s mission statement. Ask who’s responsible for HCAHPS. Volunteer for projects tied to patient feedback. The more you understand how decisions are made, the more you can influence them.

Develop your communication and leadership skills.
​Books, podcasts, and free courses on communication, coaching, and leadership can go a long way. You don’t need to become a TED Talk speaker, just be intentional about growing in this area.

Network with people already doing the work.
​Reach out to patient experience directors, culture leaders, or even HR partners. Ask how they got started and what skills they look for. You’ll get way more clarity (and confidence) than scrolling job boards alone.

Stay open to nontraditional entry points.
​Roles like education, quality, employee engagement, or even onboarding can be great bridges into experience and culture work — especially in organizations that promote internally.

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Salary

There’s no single salary range for patient experience roles — and that’s part of what makes this path both exciting and a little tricky to navigate.

If you’re working inside a health system in a role like Patient Experience Manager or Director of Patient Experience, salaries typically range from $75K–$120K, depending on the size of the organization and your level of responsibility. Leadership roles with broader oversight or titles like Chief Experience Officer can earn more, sometimes exceeding $150K.

If you move into consulting, the income potential is less predictable — but it can also be significantly higher. Consultants often charge per project, per hour, or through retainer agreements. If you build your own business (like Kris did), your income is directly tied to how you price and package your services — and how many clients you take on.

You won’t always see “RN” or “nurse” in the job title, so don’t limit your search to traditional language. Look for roles in culture, experience, engagement, retention, and leadership development — and be ready to speak to the value your clinical lens brings to the table.

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What to search for when job hunting.

Here’s the thing — patient experience and culture-focused roles don’t always have “nurse” in the title. And they definitely don’t all show up under “nursing jobs” on job boards. So knowing the right keywords to search can open up a whole new world of possibilities.

Here are some to try:

• Patient Experience Manager / Director / Specialist
• Culture & Engagement Consultant
• Organizational Development
• Leadership Development
• Employee Engagement
• Retention & Burnout Prevention
• Clinical Excellence Coach
• Patient Advocacy Program Manager
• Communication & Training Specialist

Your laughter injection.

I asked a nurse for her New Year’s resolution. She didn’t answer — she was still charting last year’s.

Thanks for reading!

If this resonated, forward it to a friend, a manager, or that one nurse who’s always speaking up about what patients really need. They might be one conversation away from turning their advocacy into their next role.

Your voice matters here.

If you’ve been following The Nontraditional Nurse, I’d love to hear what’s been helpful, what you want more of, or what could make this even better. Just hit reply and share — I read every message.

Appreciate you being here.

Ellie