Racial and ethnic health disparities are receiving increased attention, and yet structural racism continues to negatively impact communities of color. This review identified only six papers studying the impact of structural racism on severe maternal morbidity (SMM). Despite heterogeneity in measures and outcomes, the studies all demonstrated a link between structural racism and SMM; additional research is required.

Psychological safety is a cornerstone of high reliability organizations (HROs). This children’s hospital developed two scales (trust in team members and trust in leadership) and one composite measure (local learning) to measure staff psychological safety and evaluate the effectiveness of their transition to high reliability. More than 4,500 health system staff completed the survey; results indicate the two scales are strongly associated with the composite measure.

Disruptive and rude behavior can hinder teamwork and diminish patient safety. This randomized, simulation-based study including attendings, fellows, and residents explored whether rudeness during handoff affects the likelihood for challenging a diagnostic error. The authors found that rudeness may disproportionally hinder diagnostic performance among less experienced physicians.

Organizational cultures that encourage psychological safety have been shown to increase safe healthcare. The authors used survey, observational, and interview data to explore psychological safety within four healthcare teams in one hospital. While survey results indicated a high level of psychological safety, observations and interviews identified examples of situations resulting in lower levels of psychological safety, such as absence of learning behavior, low levels of support from other team members, and lack of familiarity among team members.