Creating Psychological Safety in Teams: Handout

Resource: Creating Psychological Safety in Teams (PDF, 195 KB, 3 pages)

It is important for team members to feel that their environment supports asking for help, trying new ways of doing things, and learning from mistakes. This resource provides suggestions for how to make primary care practice team members feel safe as they engage in quality improvement activities. In alignment with both Key Driver 4: Create and support high functioning teams to deliver high-quality evidence-based care and Key Driver 6: Nurture leadership and create a culture of continuous learning and evidence-based practice, this tool supplies examples of language that practices can use to create psychological safety, creating a culture that emphasizes collaboration, celebrates each team member’s unique contribution, and makes it easy for anyone to identify obstacles, offer improvement ideas, or speak out if there is a safety issue or other concern.

Institution of origin: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Author(s): Brach, C

Permissions: This document is publicly available and anyone in the United States may use and reprint without permission for noncommercial purposes, except copyrighted materials that are clearly noted in the document. No one may reproduce copyrighted materials without the permission of the copyright holders. Users outside the U.S. must get permission from AHRQ to reprint or translate this document. Anyone wanting to reprint this document for sale must contact AHRQ for permission.

The authors are solely responsible for this document’s contents, findings, and conclusions; the findings and conclusions do not necessarily represent the views of AHRQ. Therefore, do not interpret any statement in this report as an official position of AHRQ or of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Acknowledgements: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality EvidenceNOW Initiative

Publication date: August 2018