Building a Culture of Safety Tip Sheet

The culture of safety tip sheet emphasizes that sustainable patient safety depends on psychological safety, strong system learning, high‑reliability behaviors, and visible leadership commitment to continuous improvement.

Who it’s for:

Risk professionals and patient safety leaders
Executive and senior leadership teams
Quality, compliance, and clinical operations teams
Nursing leaders, frontline clinical teams, and unit managers
Interdisciplinary safety, learning system, and high‑reliability committees

What it can be used for:

Strengthening and sustaining a culture of safety across departments
Embedding high‑reliability behaviors into daily operations
Improving event reporting, learning systems, and feedback loops
Supporting psychological safety and shared accountability
Guiding organizational assessments of safety culture maturity

What’s inside:

Situation: Safety culture varies widely across organizations due to communication gaps, hierarchy, and inconsistent leadership engagement
Background: High reliability principles, psychological safety, and system‑based thinking are essential to building and sustaining a strong safety culture
Assessment: Organizations often face gaps in teamwork, learning systems, and just culture; tools like SOPS® and IHI assessments help evaluate maturity
Recommendations: Demonstrate visible leadership commitment, foster just culture, strengthen learning systems, promote psychological safety and ownership, embed HRO behaviors, and measure progress

Access the Tip Sheet

Safety culture varies widely across organizations due to communication gaps, hierarchy, and inconsistent leadership engagement.