A strong safety culture is the cornerstone of a thriving healthcare system. It underpins all experiences—for patients and employees—and drives key metrics like retention, loyalty, and “Likelihood to Recommend” (LTR) scores. Ultimately, a strong safety culture powers a virtuous cycle, leading to better outcomes for everyone. 

This first-of-its-kind report, “Safety in healthcare 2024,” brings together Press Ganey's integrated dataset of patient and employee experience, clinical, and safety measures to analyze the landscape today. Representing 12 million patient encounters, the views of one million healthcare employees, and over 550,000 reported safety events, it explores emerging trends, as well as the strategies top-performing healthcare organizations leverage to improve patient and employee safety.

Key safety takeaways for 2024: 

• The gap in patient perceptions of safety in inpatient and outpatient settings is now 2.5x wider than pre-pandemic. While patients in medical practices and ambulatory settings felt substantially safer in 2023 (81.9%) compared to pre-pandemic levels (78.1%), perceptions of safety in hospitals fell 5.1%.   
• Following record lows in 2021, workplace safety culture is increasing. Employee views of safety within their organization have risen 1.2% over the last two years, but nearly half still report low perceptions of safety culture.  
• Reported assaults against nursing personnel jumped 5% YOY. In 2023, the rate of reported assaults against nurses increased to 2.71 per 100 nursing personnel, from 2.59 the previous year.  
• Safety outcomes show continued momentum. The biggest improvement was seen in catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) rates, which are now better than pre-pandemic levels. 

For these insights and more, including strategies top-performing organizations use to build a strong safety culture, download the full report.