What We Do
Our Services
Six ways NorthStar helps healthcare and senior living organizations turn the promises they make into the experiences people actually receive.
01
Independent Experience Evaluation
Pinky Promise™ Assessment
Discover whether your organization is keeping the promises it makes.
Inquire About This ServiceOrganizations make promises every day.
- Promises of safety.
- Promises of communication.
- Promises of compassion.
- Promises of responsiveness.
- Promises of respect.
- Promises of excellence.
But the critical question is:
Are people actually experiencing the promise?
The Pinky Promise™ Assessment provides an independent, comprehensive evaluation of how effectively an organization translates its stated values and experience commitments into everyday behaviors and experiences.
NorthStar examines the alignment between:
- What the organization says
- What leaders expect
- What employees understand
- What teams actually do
- What patients, residents, families, and caregivers experience
The assessment may evaluate:
Leadership & Culture
- Leadership visibility
- Accountability
- Culture alignment
- Leadership behaviors
Communication
- Reliability of communication
- Handoffs
- Information flow
- Expectations setting
Experience
- Patient/resident experience
- Family experience
- Caregiver experience
- Key moments that matter
Operations
- Process friction
- Responsiveness
- Service recovery
- Ownership and escalation
Measurement
- Experience metrics
- Feedback systems
- Action planning
- Sustainability
Deliverable
Organizations receive a Pinky Promise™ Experience Profile, identifying:
- Where the promise is strong.
- Where the promise is inconsistent.
- Where the promise is being broken.
- And where transformation can create the greatest impact.
02
1 Day / Week
Fractional Chief Patient Experience Officer
Executive experience leadership—without the cost of a full-time executive.
Inquire About This ServiceMany organizations understand the importance of patient, resident, family, and caregiver experience but do not need—or cannot justify—the cost of a full-time Chief Experience Officer.
NorthStar provides experienced executive-level leadership through a Fractional Chief Patient Experience Officer (CPXO) model.
One day each week, NorthStar becomes an extension of your executive leadership team.
The 1-Day/Week CPXO can provide:
- Executive experience strategy
- Experience governance
- Leadership coaching
- Experience performance review
- Patient/resident experience strategy
- Service recovery oversight
- Experience rounding strategy
- Experience data interpretation
- Leader accountability
- Culture transformation
- Strategic project oversight
- Executive advisory support
The engagement is designed around the organization's most pressing experience priorities.
The Pinky Promise™ Connection
The CPXO can also serve as the executive sponsor for implementing The Pinky Promise™, helping transform organizational commitments into leadership behaviors, frontline practices, and measurable outcomes.
Ideal for organizations seeking:
Executive experience expertise + strategic direction + accountability without adding a full-time executive position.
03
2 Days / Week
Fractional Chief Patient Experience Officer
Deeper engagement. Greater transformation capacity.
Inquire About This ServiceFor organizations undergoing significant experience, culture, or operational transformation, the 2-Day/Week Fractional CPXO model provides a deeper level of executive partnership.
NorthStar becomes an embedded strategic partner to executive leadership and operational teams.
Areas of engagement may include:
- Enterprise experience strategy
- Executive leadership alignment
- Experience governance
- Leadership rounding
- Experience huddles
- Patient/resident journey redesign
- Service recovery
- Culture transformation
- Employee experience alignment
- Experience measurement
- Performance improvement
- Physician engagement
- Family engagement
- Frontline coaching
- Strategic initiative implementation
What makes the model different?
The goal is not for NorthStar to become another outside consultant.
The goal is to transfer capability to the organization while creating measurable transformation.
NorthStar works alongside leaders, develops internal champions, establishes sustainable systems, and helps the organization build the capacity to continue the work independently.
The Pinky Promise™ Connection
The Pinky Promise™ can serve as the organization's behavioral framework for creating consistency between leadership intent and lived experience.
04
Align. Challenge. Transform.
Executive Retreat
Sometimes transformation begins by getting the right people in the room.
Inquire About This ServiceThe NorthStar Executive Retreat is a highly facilitated strategic experience designed to help executive teams step away from daily operational demands and focus on the organization's most important human experience challenges.
Rather than another traditional strategic planning retreat, NorthStar facilitates meaningful conversations around:
- Where are we today?
- What are our people experiencing?
- What are our patients/residents and families experiencing?
- Where are we creating unnecessary friction?
- What promises are we making?
- Are we consistently keeping those promises?
- What must change?
- What are we willing to hold ourselves accountable for?
Retreat experiences can include:
Experience Reality Check
Examine the current state through data, feedback, stories, and organizational insight.
Leadership Alignment
Create shared understanding of the experience challenge.
Friction Mapping
Identify barriers that negatively affect the human experience.
Pinky Promise™ Alignment
Define the promises leaders want patients, residents, families, and caregivers to consistently experience.
Transformation Priorities
Identify the critical few priorities that require leadership attention.
Commitment to Action
Establish ownership, accountability, and next steps.
The outcome:
Not simply a great retreat.
A leadership team aligned around a clear experience transformation agenda.
05
Developing Leaders Who Transform Experience
Leadership Academy
Experience transformation starts with leadership.
Inquire About This ServiceThe NorthStar Leadership Academy is a customized leadership development experience designed for healthcare and senior living leaders who are responsible for shaping culture and the human experience.
The Academy moves beyond traditional leadership training by focusing on the behaviors leaders must demonstrate to create environments where people can thrive.
Core development areas may include:
- Experience leadership
- Visible leadership
- Leadership presence
- Coaching and accountability
- Communication
- Emotional intelligence
- Psychological safety in practice
- Conflict management
- Service recovery
- Change leadership
- Culture transformation
- Employee engagement
- Patient/resident and family experience
- Data-driven leadership
- Leading through uncertainty
The Pinky Promise™ Leadership Component
Leaders learn how to move from:
“This is what we expect.”
to
“This is what we promise—and this is how we will demonstrate it.”
Participants can work toward Pinky Promise™ certification, creating a common behavioral language across the leadership team.
Academy outcome:
Leaders who do not simply manage the experience—
but intentionally create it.
06
Develop the Leader Behind the Leadership
Executive Coaching
The transformation of an organization often begins with the transformation of its leaders.
Inquire About This ServiceNorthStar Executive Coaching provides confidential, individualized coaching for executives and senior leaders navigating complex organizational, cultural, and experience challenges.
Coaching can focus on:
- Executive presence
- Leadership identity
- Communication
- Influence
- Relationship building
- Difficult conversations
- Accountability
- Strategic thinking
- Leading change
- Organizational culture
- Emotional intelligence
- Stakeholder management
- Executive decision-making
- Personal leadership effectiveness
NorthStar coaching is designed to help leaders:
See differently.
Think differently.
Lead differently.
Create differently.
The goal is not simply to make a leader more effective. It is to help leaders become more intentional about the experience they create for the people around them.
The Pinky Promise™ Connection
Executive coaching can incorporate The Pinky Promise™ framework to help leaders examine the relationship between:
Not sure where to begin?
Most engagements start with a conversation. Tell us about your organization and we'll recommend the right starting point.
Start a Conversation