Restoring Psychological Safety to Support QI and Transformation at the Nation's Largest Municipal Healthcare System (111X)

"Take good care of your employees, and they'll take good care of your customers, and the customers will come back," is a famous quote attributed to J.W. Marriott. NYC Health + Hospitals, the nation's largest municipal healthcare system, had lost its way when a devastating structural deficit led to a punitive culture based in blame and fear. A new leadership team developed a comprehensive strategy to rebuild psychological safety and instill a transparent culture around quality. In this session, we share the roadmap, starting with implementing a comprehensive workforce wellness program (Helping Healers Heal), rebuilding trust, redesigning the quality infrastructure, fostering a culture of kindness and humanism, and moving from a punitive to a just culture. As a result of improved psychological safety, we have implemented significant quality transformations, including a systemwide RCA Review Committee for sites to openly share, learn and grow together from adverse events; transparency around accreditation survey findings for systemwide corrective actions; a tiered QI capacity building program; and a structure enabling increased volume and complexity of QI projects. This session will share a best practice roadmap for participants to restore psychological safety, trust and workforce wellness in their sites—the foundational elements upon which quality improvement and transformation thrive.