Adrienne Boissy

Adrienne Boissy, MD, MA, is Chief Experience Officer of Cleveland Clinic Health System and a staff neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic Mellen Center for Multiple Sclerosis. In this role, Dr. Boissy leads the Office of Patient Experience and its initiatives to address and improve every aspect of a patient’s encounter with the Cleveland Clinic Health System — from their physical comfort to their educational, emotional, and spiritual needs. The Office of Patient Experience is responsible for a range of programs and services across the hospital, including service excellence, communication skills training, spiritual care, bioethics, data intelligence, volunteer services, and the ombudsman’s office.

Dr. Boissy previously served as the Medical Director of the Center of Excellence in Healthcare Communication. Her team created a comprehensive program to strengthen physician and clinician communication skills throughout Cleveland Clinic and has trained thousands of staff physicians and clinicians to date.

Dr. Boissy chairs the Empathy and Innovation summit, the largest independent summit on patient experience in the world. She also guided the development of patient advisory councils across Cleveland Clinic Health System and currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Patient Experience. In addition, Dr. Boissy was awarded an Arnold P. Gold Foundation grant for humanism in medicine. She continues to care for patients with multiple sclerosis and also serves on the editorial board of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Momentum Magazine.

She has published extensively about relationships and empathy in health care and the communication challenges in clinical practice, which were highlighted in her 2015 TEDx talk “Seeing and Being Seen: A Call for Healing.” Dr. Boissy is frequently interviewed in the media as an expert in patient experience, physician communication, and transparency. Her quotes have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Forbes, and The Atlantic, among others. A Harvard Macy scholar, she has spoken extensively around the country about the patient and provider experience and the impact of effective communication on both.

Dr. Boissy attended Boston University and worked in neurobiological research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston. She completed her medical school training at Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine and finished her neurology residency and neuroimmunology fellowship at Cleveland Clinic.