Promotional graphic for the SAM International Business Conference featuring the presentation “Patient Mortality: Examining the Relationship Between Workplace Civility, Psychological Safety, and Supervisor Responsiveness.” The image uses a blue hospital corridor background with centered title text and icons representing leadership responsiveness, patient safety, and workplace civility, along with a registration call to action directing viewers to www.samnational.org/conference

Patient safety remains one of the most critical challenges facing healthcare organizations today. Despite ongoing initiatives, preventable harm continues to affect one in twenty patients, with sentinel events frequently resulting in death or severe temporary harm. This accepted scholarly research poster presentation examines how organizational culture and leadership practices influence one of the most serious outcomes in healthcare: patient mortality.

Grounded in Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory and the Exit, Voice, Loyalty, Neglect model, this quantitative correlational study explores the relationship between patient mortality rates and employee perceptions of workplace civility, psychological safety, and supervisor responsiveness. Using secondary data from 90 medical centers across one year, the study analyzed responses from more than 63,000 employees, including nurses and physicians. Findings from the multiple linear regression analysis indicate that supervisor responsiveness for nurses is a statistically significant predictor of patient mortality rates, underscoring the critical role frontline leadership plays in patient outcomes.

This poster session highlights practical implications for healthcare leaders, including strengthening leadership development programs, reducing excessive spans of control, and using employee perception data as an early warning system for patient safety risks. The research encourages leaders to look beyond clinical protocols and examine how workplace culture, communication, and responsiveness directly affect patient care quality.

Author and Affiliation
Maria Seta, Mount St. Joseph University

Join us at the SAM International Business Conference to explore this important research and its implications for healthcare management. This poster presentation will be delivered virtually, allowing attendees from anywhere in the world to engage with the research, ask questions, and consider how leadership behaviors influence patient safety outcomes.

Register to attend the conference at www.samnational.org/conference and be part of the conversations advancing healthcare leadership and organizational effectiveness.