Dr. Christina Bowen

Taste Matters: Elevating the Eating Experience for Patients

Explore the critical role of taste, texture, and presentation in supporting patient healing and satisfaction. Through an immersive group activity, participants will gain a new perspective of the in-patient dining experience. This session will connect the importance of taste, food as medicine, and the broader impact of nutrition on clinical outcomes, emotional well-being, and the overall patient experience.

• Gain firsthand insight into how patients experience hospital meals and identify opportunities to enhance satisfaction through simple but meaningful changes
• Learn strategies for aligning culinary services with wellness goals, integrating food as medicine into patient care models
• Walk away with actionable ideas for collaborating across departments to create a more human-centered, healing dining experience in your organization

As we wrap up our time together, join us for a calming, intentional close to the conference—one that invites reflection, connection, and forward vision. This guided meditation and open sharing circle will help you pause, breathe, and integrate everything you've taken in over the past few days.

Together, we’ll reflect on the challenges ahead, the commitments we want to make, and the impact we each hope to have. Through mindfulness and shared intention, we’ll center ourselves around one common goal: building a more compassionate, equitable, and human healthcare experience in 2026 and beyond. Leave feeling grounded, inspired, and reconnected to your purpose.

• Participate in a guided meditation to reflect on key takeaways and set clear intentions for the year ahead
• Engage in a shared visioning exercise to identify personal and collective goals for PX transformation
• Leave feeling centered, reenergized, and reconnected to your purpose as a leader in patient experience

As another meaningful year at NGPX winds down, we invite you to take a moment for yourself—and for each other. Grab your lunch and head to the terrace to soak in the final bit of Palm Springs sunshine as we gather for an open, restorative discussion led by Dr. Christina Bowen, Chief Wellbeing Officer at ECU Health.

This isn’t your typical wellness talk. It’s a space to reflect, share challenges and pro-tips, and connect around what it truly means to support caregiver well-being in today’s healthcare environment. As burnout, emotional fatigue, and staffing strain continue to rise, it’s clear that patient experience cannot flourish without healthy, supported teams behind it. Join us as we explore how to embed well-being into the fabric of daily operations—from leadership modeling and policy, to peer support, technology, and culture.

Whether you’re a PX leader, a clinician, or someone championing staff engagement, you’ll leave feeling grounded, connected, and inspired to create environments where both patients and providers can thrive.

• Discover practical strategies to strengthen emotional resilience, connection, and purpose on your teams
• Learn how leading organizations are weaving well-being into the heart of patient experience strategy
• Explore cross-functional solutions to burnout that bring leadership, operations, and frontline staff together