Keynote Presentation 43rd National Hospitality in Healthcare Conference

Everyday Moments, Extraordinary Impact: A Maturity Framework for Patient Engagement in Health and Aged Care (24546)

Shelley Thomson 1
  1. Patient Experience Agency, Canberra, ACT, Australia

Think about one moment from the past week. A meal delivered with a smile. A resident's preference remembered without being asked. A conversation that made someone feel seen. These are everyday moments — and in health and aged care, they are anything but ordinary.

This keynote invites hospitality leaders and frontline teams to look at the work they do every day through a new lens: a six-stage patient engagement maturity framework that maps the journey from simply informing patients to genuinely empowering them as partners in their own care experience.

Built around real-world case studies gathered from catering, environmental services, and broader support roles across the sector, this session goes beyond theory to celebrate what great already looks like — and to show what becomes possible when hospitality teams are integrated, heard, and involved in decisions at every level.

Because the most transformative shift in patient experience isn't a system change or a policy update. It's a cultural one. And it starts with a simple but powerful belief: nothing about us without us.