Care Experience Lab helps healthcare organizations transform complex patient, caregiver, staff, and leadership communication into clear, human experiences — grounded in health literacy principles, patient experience expertise, healthcare operations knowledge, nursing leadership, and responsible AI.

Why we exist

Healthcare information is often accurate — and still difficult to understand. That gap creates confusion, erodes trust, and shows up in avoidable phone calls, missed steps, and a patient experience that doesn’t reflect the quality of the care behind it. We help leaders close that gap.

Cheri Clancy, MSN, MS, RN, NEA-BC, CPXP

Founder of Care Experience Lab, Cheri Clancy is a nurse executive, certified patient experience professional, author, and speaker with more than 30 years in healthcare leadership. She has served as Assistant Vice President of Patient Experience for a three-hospital health system and as a professor of leadership at Rutgers University, and she is the author of Critical Conversations in Healthcare, published with Sigma Theta Tau, the International Honor Society of Nursing.

Her work brings together clinical expertise, health literacy science, and responsible AI to help healthcare organizations communicate in ways people can understand, trust, and act on.

What we believe

  • Clear communication is a clinical and operational responsibility — not an afterthought.
  • Patients and families deserve information designed around how they actually read and decide.
  • AI should support and accelerate human expertise, never replace clinical judgment.
  • Better understanding leads to better experiences — and better outcomes.

Work with us

The best place to start is a Communication Clarity Audit — a focused review of your most important materials, with prioritized, evidence-based recommendations you can act on right away.

The Care Experience Lab Framework

Six ways we create clarity

Communication

Plain language that lands

Patient Experience

Designed around people

Responsible AI

Ethical, practical AI

Leadership

Safe, capable teams

Workflow Design

Less friction, better care

CPXP Education

Grow the profession

Executive Expertise

How Care Experience Lab helps

Advisory for Leaders

Strategy for patient experience, communication, and operations.

Frameworks & Toolkits

Ready-to-use tools teams can apply immediately.

Leadership Education

Building psychologically safe, capable teams.

Responsible AI Guidance

Adopt AI safely, ethically, and practically.

Keynotes & Workshops

Practical sessions for healthcare audiences.

CPXP Preparation

Coaching toward the patient experience credential.

Use Cases

See complexity become clarity

A real example — turning dense colonoscopy prep instructions into a clear, visual patient guide.

Before: dense, text-heavy colonoscopy preparation instructions
Before — dense, text-heavy instructions
After: clear, visual colonoscopy preparation patient guide
After — clear, visual patient guide

Explore this Use Case

From the Resource Library

Frameworks you can use today

Responsible AI Governance Toolkit

Adopt AI safely and ethically.

CAHPS Leadership Toolkit

Turn CAHPS data into better experiences.

Health Literacy & Plain Language Toolkit

Make complex content easy to act on.

Explore Resources

Book & Thought Leadership

Communication that builds trust

Critical Conversations in Healthcare, Third Edition by Cheri Clancy - book cover

Third Edition · Sigma Theta Tau International

Critical Conversations in Healthcare

Scripts and techniques for effective interprofessional and patient communication — turning difficult conversations into clear, trusted ones. Authored by Cheri Clancy.

About Care Experience Lab

Meet the founder

Cheri Clancy, MSN, MS, RN, NEA-BC, CPXP, is a nurse leader, patient experience strategist, author, educator, and healthcare communication expert. Her work focuses on helping healthcare organizations improve how people communicate, lead, teach, and build trust across complex care environments.

She is the author of Critical Conversations in Healthcare, Third Edition, published by Sigma Theta Tau International, and has spent her career helping healthcare professionals navigate difficult conversations with clarity, empathy, and practical skill.

Through Care Experience Lab, Cheri brings together clinical leadership, patient experience expertise, health literacy, adult education, healthcare operations, and responsible AI to help organizations turn complex information into communication patients, caregivers, staff, and leaders can understand and use.

Read the Full Story

Why leaders trust Cheri

  • Nurse leader with executive patient experience and healthcare operations background
  • Certified Patient Experience Professional (CPXP) and board-certified nurse executive
  • Author of Critical Conversations in Healthcare, Third Edition
  • Educator, speaker, and consultant focused on communication, leadership, and care experience