Speaking Up and Taking Action: Psychological Safety and Joint Problem-Solving Orientation in Safety Improvement

Healthcare organizations face stubborn challenges in ensuring patient safety and mitigating clinician turnover. This paper aims to advance theory and research on patient safety by elucidating how the role of psychological safety in patient safety can be enhanced with joint problem-solving orientation (JPS). We hypothesized and tested for an interaction between JPS and psychological safety in relation to safety improvement, leveraging longitudinal survey data from a sample of 14,943 patient-facing healthcare workers. We found a moderation effect, in which psychological safety was positively associated with safety improvement, and the relationship was stronger in the presence of JPS. Psychological safety and JPS also interacted positively in predicting clinicians’ intent to stay with the organization. For theory and research, our findings point to JPS as a measurable factor that may enhance the value of psychological safety for patient safety improvement—perhaps because voiced concerns about patient safety often require joint problem-solving to produce meaningful change. For practice, our conceptual framework, viewing psychological safety and JPS as complementary factors, can help organizations adopt a more granular approach towards assessing the interpersonal aspect of their safety climate. This will enable organizations to obtain a more nuanced understanding of their safety climate and identify areas for improvement accordingly.