Achieving Patient (aka Customer) Experience Excellence

While studying communication at Houston Baptist University, Rhonda Dishongh aspired to be a disk jockey for a heavy metal radio station. She began working as a registration representative in the emergency room of a hospital to earn extra money while in school. In those three years, she was bitten by the healthcare bug, forfeited the plan to be a disk jockey, and continued her career as a manager in the business office. Interactions that occurred during her beloved grandmother's death inspired her to dedicate her career to designing desired experiences in healthcare. With twenty-five years of service at the various hospitals and system offices, Rhonda has been an instrumental part of the leadership team. Rhonda has contributed to teams successful outcomes, receiving national recognition for performance in quality and customer experience. Rhonda continues to serve as the director of Customer Experience Design and Patient Business Services.

On a personal note, Rhonda has been married to her high school sweetheart for twenty years and spends her personal time documenting a pictorial history of her two sons and daughter.

Qaalfa Dibeehi (pronounced "alfa dibay-i") is a recognized global expert in Customer Experience with more than twenty years of experience in the customer-related space with particular emphasis on the special problems and sensitivities of organizations that have a dual commercial and social/community responsibility.

He is the chief operating and consulting officer of Beyond Philosophy, the Customer Experience consultancy. He was previously a managing consultant with Round, the customer centricity consultancy. While there, he helped develop an assessment tool that eventually won a 2003 Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Innovation of the Year award. His experience also includes senior roles at Fulcrum Analytics, where he was director of their consumer and strategy consulting pra