NYU Langone Health has patient access centers in multiple locations, including Florida, Las Vegas and Bogotá, Colombia. Agents are responsible for handling scheduling, referrals, patient communication and navigation for one of the country’s leading academic health systems. Every patient interaction carries the weight of the NYU Langone Health brand, which needs to be delivered at scale. 

With geographically diverse and large operations (the Florida patient access center employs more than 500 team members), the hospital leadership wanted to make sure all their interactions with patients were consistent. That’s why three years ago, NYU Langone Health partnered with The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center to overhaul how its ambulatory network engages with patients. 

But NYU Langone Health faced some raised eyebrows internally when it started the partnership. Could a hospital really partner with a luxury hospitality brand?

“I think it’s fair to say there can initially be skepticism anytime a healthcare organization explores ideas from outside the traditional medical world, particularly when the word ‘hospitality’ enters the conversation,” says Anne Marie Falvey, Senior Practice Director of Culture Transformation at The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center. “People sometimes hear that term and immediately think luxury amenities or cosmetic service enhancements. But that was never the substance of this work.” 

“This work” was aimed at reshaping business culture, transforming service strategy and improving the overall patient experience. The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center recommended a patient engagement strategy that was repeatable, ownable and applicable across the health system without sacrificing quality of care or clinical expertise.

They created an enterprise infrastructure, CARES, built around five principles: Connect, Align, Respond, Ensure and Sign Off. Today, more than 10,000 employees across 320 ambulatory practices have been trained on it. The partnership was announced publicly this April. 

“Healthcare is the ultimate test for culture,” says Andrew Rubin, senior vice president of clinical affairs and ambulatory care at NYU Langone Health. “If legendary service can take root here, it can take root anywhere. NYU Langone Health proved that hospitality principles like connection, anticipation and empathy are not simply luxuries in healthcare. They are essential to the human experience.” 

What CARES stands for 

CARES is a sequenced behavioral model that gives agents a flexible structure, not a set of lines to read. Each letter represents an action:

• Connect is establishing a human presence before anything else. That means using the patient’s name, engaging warmly and creating an immediate sense of psychological safety. 
• Align is a phase that involves listening, thoughtful questioning and recapping key points so the patient feels heard before any solution is offered.
• Respond is when the agent moves into action: communicating next steps, presenting options and delivering guidance. This is when agents use phrases like, “Here’s what I’d recommend” or “Let’s walk through the next step together.” 
• Ensure is where most interactions typically end, but shouldn’t. After action is taken, the agent pauses to confirm comprehension, check for remaining concerns and anticipate additional needs. The questions here are things like, “Did we accomplish everything you were hoping for today?” and “What additional questions do you have?” 
• Sign Off is the last impression, which is just as important as the first. Agents use the patient’s name and offer a personalized closing, based on something learned during the call. Here’s an example: “I know we were working together today to help get an appointment for your son. I hope he starts feeling much better very soon.”

How CARES is woven into existing operations

The framework has been implemented across ambulatory practices, patient access centers and central billing operations, ensuring alignment from receptionists to contact center agents. It was also extended into leadership coaching, storytelling practices and behavior-based hiring, too. 

Training on CARES runs about three hours and can be delivered in person, virtually or in a hybrid format. Some managers extend the learning into asynchronous LMS modules for refreshers, onboarding support or recertification. Falvey says that a single workshop doesn’t create culture. For example, CARES is built into daily and weekly team huddles, recognition programs and coaching conversations. 

Rather than generic praise, managers are encouraged to tie recognition directly to observable CARES behaviors. A “Connect” recognition might celebrate a representative who created exceptional warmth during a difficult call. An “Ensure” recognition might spotlight someone who anticipated a patient’s need before the patient articulated it.

“Long-term success does not come from a single workshop alone,” Falvey says. “For CARES to truly become embedded into organizational culture, it must be reinforced operationally and behaviorally over time.”

Also, CARES isn’t a script that agents read to patients when they call. 

“The CARES framework is a sequenced behavioral model designed to create consistency, clarity and humanity across every interaction,” Falvey says. “It still allows each person to bring their own personality, judgment and authentic communication style to the experience.” 

Since implementing CARES, NYU Langone Health has seen meaningful movement in both quantitative and qualitative indicators. For example: 

• Press Ganey performance in key areas. 
• Patient comments reflected stronger perceptions of empathy, communication and coordination. 
• Internally, leaders and frontline teams reported improved follow-through, clearer service expectations, stronger cross-functional teamwork and more consistent handling of difficult patient situations.

“This partnership was never about importing luxury into medicine,” Falvey says. “It was about applying proven principles of human-centered experience design, communication, trust-building and service recovery to environments where people are often at their most vulnerable.”

The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center is hosting their two-day annual Summit in Washington D.C., Oct. 15-16. This is an opportunity for healthcare contact center leaders to explore timeless hospitality principles and transformative ideas rooted in the legacy of The Ritz-Carlton. Learn more.