Build what’s next
Leadership Pipeline
A managed bench of ready leaders—internal succession and an external healthcare talent network, developed over time.
See the Leadership PipelineLeadership • Performance • Patient Experience
Better Healthcare Organizations Start With Better Leaders and Better Systems.
Apex helps health systems solve the leadership and performance problems that get in the way of better care, stronger teams, and sustainable results.
Two Paths, One Company
Apex Helps Health Systems in Two Connected Ways.
Build the leaders you will need next—and solve the leadership and performance challenges you have now. This page is the second path.
Solve what’s now — this page
Coaching & Consulting
Coaching, leadership development, facilitation, strategy, operations, and patient experience—applied to the problem in front of you right now.
Featured Specialty — Patient Experience
If the Scores Aren’t Moving, Look Beneath the Score.
Deep expertise in patient experience. Broader capability in leadership and organizational performance.
Patient experience is often where Apex enters, because it is visible, measured, and urgent. It is rarely where the work ends. Beneath the score sit leadership routines, operating systems, accountability, data, and execution—the same machinery that drives every other performance result in the organization.
HCAHPS and other patient feedback measures tell you what patients experienced. They do not always tell you why the experience broke down—or what leaders should change next. Sustainable improvement requires looking beneath the score at the leadership routines, workflows, communication practices, data, accountability, and operating systems shaping the experience every day.
Jonathan brings deep patient experience expertise to this work. He serves as co-chair of Maryland’s Patient Experience Learning Collaborative, convened by the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission (HSCRC) in partnership with the Maryland Hospital Association (MHA). The Collaborative brings together hospital patient experience leaders, state regulators, MHA leadership, and national survey vendors to identify strategies for improving patient experience and HCAHPS performance statewide.
Building the Infrastructure for Sustainable Improvement
The Collaborative’s work points to a practical truth: lasting improvement requires infrastructure, not isolated tactics. These five elements also shape the way I approach patient experience consulting.
Senior Patient Experience Leadership
Create clear executive ownership and bring the patient voice to senior-level decision-making.
Data Strategy & Listening
Go beyond HCAHPS outcome measures with consistent reporting, better listening methods, and data that helps leaders understand what is driving patient perceptions.
Policies & Operating Systems
Align policies, workflows, communication, discharge processes, complaint handling, and other operating practices with the experience the organization intends to deliver.
Best-Practice Measurement
Do not assume a practice is working because it was rolled out; build validation and process measures that show whether behaviors are actually happening reliably.
Staff Coaching & Consistency
Build the teaching, reinforcement, coaching, and leadership follow-through required to make effective practices sustainable.
Where Hospitals Often Need Help
- Build a patient experience strategy and improvement roadmap
- Interpret HCAHPS and patient feedback data to understand what is actually driving results
- Strengthen patient experience leadership structure and the operating model behind it
- Implement proven practices—and measure whether they are actually being sustained
- Coach leaders and frontline teams on patient-centered behaviors that stick
- Facilitate executive, clinical, and cross-functional teams around experience improvement
Positioning
The Goal Isn’t a Workshop, a Coaching Package, or Another Initiative. It’s Progress.
We start with the result that needs to change. Sometimes the barrier is leadership. Sometimes it is strategy, workflow, accountability, communication, or the way a team is organized. Often it is several of those things at once.
My role is to help leaders see the problem more clearly, challenge assumptions, identify the few changes that matter most, and turn those decisions into action. Coaching, facilitation, assessments, operating reviews, and strategic planning are tools—not the product. The product is meaningful progress on an important problem.
Services
Capabilities We Bring to the Problem
These are not separate product lines. They are the tools Apex uses to solve an organizational problem and strengthen the leaders responsible for it. The challenge determines which ones the engagement uses, and most meaningful problems require several at once.
Solving today’s performance problem usually surfaces something else: where succession is thin, which leaders are ready for more, and where future leadership risk is building.
When that happens, the same insight can feed the longer-term work on our Leadership Pipeline side.
Patient Experience Strategy & Improvement
Move beyond isolated tactics to a sustainable improvement strategy. Work can include HCAHPS and feedback analysis, improvement infrastructure, leadership alignment, best-practice implementation and measurement, frontline coaching, and facilitated planning.
Executive & Leadership Coaching
One-on-one coaching for executives and emerging leaders navigating complex decisions, executive presence, team leadership, and growth—without losing the strengths that made them successful. Our coaches are certified by the International Coaching Federation.
Leadership Development
Practical leadership development built around real work—not abstract theory. Programs can include individual coaching, leadership cohorts, assessments, workshops, and applied development plans.
Strategic Planning & Visioning
Clarify where the organization is going and what matters most, then align leaders around a focused set of priorities—moving from broad aspiration to a strategy people can actually execute.
Facilitation & Team Alignment
Structured facilitation that helps teams have the conversations they need—setting vision, defining priorities, breaking down silos, and building shared ownership of results.
Operational Excellence & Efficiency
Diagnose broken workflows, unclear accountability, bottlenecks, and performance gaps—then redesign how work gets done so teams operate with greater clarity, speed, and consistency.
The Approach
From Problem to Sustainable Change
- 01
Diagnose
Clarify the result that needs to change and identify what is actually driving the problem.
- 02
Align
Build shared understanding among the leaders and teams who need to own the solution.
- 03
Design
Choose the few strategies, behaviors, workflows, and measures most likely to move the work forward.
- 04
Execute
We make sure you don't struggle where others do. Turn the plan into an operating system with accountability, coaching, and measurable next steps—then adjust as reality changes.
Depending on the engagement, the work may include review of data collection tools, data analysis, executive coaching, stakeholder interviews, assessments, strategy sessions, team workshops, facilitated retreats, operating reviews, or advisory support.
Outcomes
What Better Looks Like
The exact measures depend on the challenge. The work is designed to help organizations create clearer leadership, stronger execution, and more sustainable performance.
Patient experience
- Build a sustainable infrastructure for patient experience improvement
- Better understand what is driving HCAHPS and patient feedback
- Improve consistency in implementation of proven patient experience practices
- Become more confident, intentional, and effective leaders
- Improve leadership communication, executive presence, and decision-making
- Align teams around a clear strategic plan and shared priorities
- Improve operating discipline and repair broken workflows
- Increase accountability while strengthening team engagement
- Improve margins and organizational performance
- Build leadership capability that lasts beyond the engagement
Testimonials
Trusted by Leaders Doing Difficult Work
Clients describe the work as practical, candid, highly personalized, and focused on results.
Jonathan and I have been working together for 6 years and it has been a game changer for me and our entire team. He has been a valued and trusted counselor who consistently listens with empathy and challenges us to be better people in pursuit of excellence. Jonathan is always reliable, enthusiastic and ready to work. Quick with a resource and amazingly well read, I rely on him to give me insight into next steps towar…
Mark Hopkins
CEO
Jonathan's ability to tailor leadership tasks to healthcare, his supportive coaching style and genuine interest in our success has helped to take me from being confused, stressed, and quite honestly on the brink of giving up on leadership to having a passion f…
W. Shawn Welty
Manager, Behavioral Health
Jonathan encouraged me to pursue the CNO path and supported me along the way. That guidance and encouragement made a real difference in my career. As a CNO, I’ve learned that developing effective leaders isn’t about finding “the perfect candidate”—it’s about i…
Erin B.
Chief Nursing Officer
Working with Jonathan through the University of Maryland Executive MBA program has been one of the most valuable leadership development experiences of my career. His thoughtful questions and candid, respectful feedback have helped me become a more intentional,…
Monica Jordan
EMBA Student
I’ve had the opportunity to work with Jonathan, and he is outstanding. Jonathan does a nice job combining strategic perspective with practical, actionable guidance. His ability to quickly get to the heart of complex challenges and provide clear, tailored insig…
Chris Garvin
Principal, Gauge Capital
Working with Jonathan Sachs has been truly invaluable. His coach-like leadership style, guidance, and accountability were exactly what I needed. Our work together helped me tap into my most natural leadership style, identify blind spots, and quiet the voice in…
Jeff Schumacher
Chief Operating Officer
I had the privilege of working with Jonathan as my executive coach, and the experience was truly transformative. He is an exceptional listener who provides valuable insights and actionable feedback, making every session incredibly impactful. His ability to tai…
Babak Kouchmenshky
VP of Global Data Science
Fit
A Good Fit for Problems That Don’t Fit in a Box
Patient experience is receiving attention, but improvement is inconsistent or difficult to sustain.
A leadership or team issue is getting in the way of strategy, execution, or performance.
The challenge crosses functions and no single department can solve it alone.
You need a thought partner who can move comfortably between strategy, people, operations, and execution.
The work is especially valuable when the problem is important, nuanced, and consequential enough that a generic solution will not do.
About Jonathan
Experience From Both Sides of the Table
Jonathan Sachs, MBA, FACHE, PCC, has led complex organizations, coached senior executives, developed leaders, built and turned around teams, and advised organizations on strategy and performance. His perspective blends the discipline of an operator with the curiosity of a coach and the practicality of a consultant.
- Co-chair of Maryland’s Patient Experience Learning Collaborative, convened by HSCRC in partnership with the Maryland Hospital Association.
- PCC-credentialed executive coach through the International Coaching Federation.
- Has coached and taught leaders through Georgetown University, Villanova University, the University of Maryland, and UMBC.
What Problem Are You Trying to Solve?
Whether the pressure point is patient experience, a leadership team, execution, or operating performance, start with a conversation. We’ll clarify what is happening, what needs to change, and what it means for the leadership capability behind it.
No generic package. No predetermined agenda. Start with the problem.