Dr. Gregory Makoul is an internationally recognized communication scientist who brings both human-centered design and 'radical common sense' into healthcare innovation and leadership with a focus on helping organizations turn aspiration into action. In his recent role as Chief Transformation Officer at NRC Health, he founded the Human Understanding Institute and originated the One Big Dot approach to elevating experience, quality, safety, and equity. Previously, he was Founder and CEO of PatientWisdom (acquired by NRC in 2021), named one of the 100 companies in the world with the greatest potential to change healthcare. Greg is on the faculty of Medicine at Yale School of Medicine and the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, associate editor of Patient Education and Counseling, and senior author of many peer-reviewed publications including an international consensus statement on reinforcing the humanity in healthcare, published in 2024.
Earlier in his career, Greg was Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Communication + Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, where he was a chief architect of curriculum reform. He also devoted six years to care transformation as Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer / Chief Academic Officer at Saint Francis Care, an integrated delivery system where he founded the Connecticut Institute for Primary Care Innovation and gained real-world experience to complement his work in academic medicine. Passionate about improving health and well-being in underserved communities, he led initiatives in Illinois and Connecticut to elevate community voices about needs and assets as well as co-design successful patient education programs with community members.
The tools Greg developed for teaching and assessing communication skills are used worldwide. He is one of only three people to whom the Academy of Communication in Healthcare has bestowed the George Engel Award for outstanding research contributing to the theory, practice, and teaching of effective healthcare communication and related skills as well as the Lynn Payer Award for outstanding contributions to the literature. He was also named a Learning Health System Research Pioneer by the Association of American Medical Colleges. Greg earned his BA in Biology-Psychology at Wesleyan, PhD in Communication Studies at Northwestern, and MS in Health Care Delivery Science at Dartmouth. He and his wife, Limor, live on the Connecticut shoreline where they enjoy the outdoors almost as much as visits from their two daughters.