About Barbara
I Don’t Raise Your Average for a Month. I Close the Gap Between Your Best and the Rest.
Same policies. Same training. Same logo on the door. And still, one location earns glowing reviews while another drives the complaints. One nurse gets requested by name. One front desk shows up in every bad review.
That’s Service Drift: the gap between the patient experience leadership designed and the one patients actually get, person to person, shift to shift, location to location.
Nobody decided to deliver bad service. It just slid, the way everything slides when no one is watching. Your scores show the drift. They can’t show you where it’s happening.
Why I See It Differently
I used to play professional beach volleyball. Matches are rarely won by the best serve. They’re lost on unforced errors.
Patient experience works the same way. It isn’t lost in the strategy meeting. It’s lost on the phone, at the front desk, in the handoff, and in the delay. Years of mystery calls, waiting room observations, and frontline training inside healthcare organizations taught me that’s where drift starts, and where it has to be fixed.
It’s also why one-and-done training doesn’t work. Scores tick up for six weeks, then service drifts right back. If training alone fixed this, you would have fixed it already.
How I Work: Find It. Fix It. Hold It.
Find It. Mystery calls, visits, interviews, and review mining show what patients actually get, not what the policy manual says they get.
Fix It. Leaders first, then staff, trained on the exact moments where service breaks.
Hold It. Leader coaching, reinforcement, and a 90-day re-shop prove the fix stuck.
Results That Held
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A large California health system: One location ranked 13th out of 13 statewide on Reception Helpfulness and Nurse Care and Concern. It moved to first place shortly after targeted training, and it has held the #1 ranking since 2018 because the accountability systems stayed in place.
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United Health Centers: Supervisor Linda Smith reported patient satisfaction rising into the high 90th percentile, with less than 1% patient complaints, within 90 days of applying my techniques.
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Wisconsin Organization of Nurse Leaders, 2026: 100% of responding nurse leaders found the keynote valuable. 99% would hear me again.
Credentials
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Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), Accredited Speaker (AS), and Certified Patient Experience Professional (CPXP). One of only three women in the world to hold both the CSP and AS designations.
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2,100+ presentations to 95,000+ people in 12 countries
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Author of How Organizations Deliver BAD Customer Service (And Strategies That Turn It Around)
Who I Work With
Multi-site health systems, medical groups, community health centers, and health plans, including Optum, SCAN Health Plan, Kentucky Health Center Network, Desert Oasis Healthcare, and Naval Medical Center San Diego. I also speak for healthcare associations including the Wisconsin Hospital Association, WONL, and the Montana Hospital Association.
Outside healthcare, I work with corporations, associations, and government agencies whose service has to be consistent everywhere. See the full client list
Testimonial: Jennifer NeSmith video (same YouTube embed as the homepage) Caption under the video: Jennifer NeSmith, CEO, Kentucky Health Center Network
Subhead (H2): Where Is Drift Showing Up for You?
Let’s find out in 30 minutes. No pitch deck. Just your situation and where drift is most likely hiding.
What Healthcare Leaders Say.
Jennifer NeSmith, CEO, Kentucky Health Center Network
Where Is Drift Showing Up for You?
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