Nearly 50% of healthcare workers report low perceptions of safety culture—even as national scores improve

Press Ganey's 2026 analysis of 1.3M employees and 23M+ patients shows safety culture rebounding, but persistent shift and role gaps-particularly overnight-continue to impact reliability

Press Ganey, a leading provider of experience measurement, data analytics, and AI-powered insights to health systems and health plans, today announced new national findings identifying evidence-based indicators of safer, more reliable care.

Nearly half of healthcare employees (46.6%) report low perceptions of safety culture, even as national scores improve, with continued variation across roles and shifts. The data reveal a "three-shift" reality in many hospital environments, where daytime, nighttime, and weekend care shifts operate under different structural conditions that influence reliability.

According to Press Ganey's 2026 safety analysis-based on 2025 data from 1.3 million healthcare employees and more than 23 million patients-organizations that foster trust across teams, align leadership around safety priorities, and sustain strong reporting and learning practices demonstrate improved clinical performance and workforce engagement.

The findings also demonstrate that safety culture and active safety concern reporting are leading indicators of safety performance, workforce stability, and patient trust.

"Safe care starts with strong cultures," said Tejal Gandhi, MD, Chief Safety and Transformation Officer at Press Ganey. "When leadership actively demonstrates safety as a core value, and when teamwork, learning, and improvement are reinforced across the organization, reliability strengthens and variation narrows."

Key insights include:

• Safety culture is a leading indicator of workforce stability. Seven of the top 10 national drivers of employee engagement relate directly to safety culture.

• Social capital is the connective tissue that brings everything together. Organizations that lead in employee-reported respect and teamwork are 3x more likely to achieve top-quartile patient loyalty and significantly more likely to excel on key safety outcomes.

• Active reporting means high performance. Facilities that report safety events at or above expected rates are more than 8x as likely to rank in the top quartile for employee-manager collaboration, learning from mistakes, and teamwork within units.

• Strong learning systems and reporting cultures reinforce one another. Organizations that conduct more rigorous and consistent cause analyses following serious safety events are more likely to have strong reporting cultures and better patient experience.

• Patient perceptions of safety reflect organizational culture. Patients who report strong teamwork, clear communication, and responsiveness are more likely to express trust and loyalty-reinforcing the connection between workforce culture and the care experience.

The analysis also introduces new national benchmarks for measuring the health of safety learning systems-among the first of their kind in the industry-moving beyond event volume to assess responsiveness, feedback, cause analysis rigor, and action plan completion.

Advancing safety through alignment and learning

The findings reinforce that harm rarely begins with a catastrophic event. Subtle shifts in culture, communication, and reporting behavior often precede measurable variation in outcomes. Organizations where leaders demonstrate safety as a core value, strengthen learning systems, and build trust across teams demonstrate greater consistency in safety performance over time.

"Improvement depends on sustained attention to culture, learning and improvement," Dr. Gandhi said. "Our Zero Harm 24/7 industry collaborative is designed to overcome the barriers that organizations face in strengthening safety culture, starting with visible commitment and alignment at the highest levels of leadership. When that commitment is clear and consistent, teams are more likely to speak up, learning improves, and reliability follows."

Download State of Healthcare Safety 2026 to explore national benchmarks, diagnostic safety findings, and evidence-based strategies to strengthen safety culture and performance.

About Press Ganey

Press Ganey is a leading global provider of experience technology, data analytics, and insights that help companies better understand and serve their customers, employees, and stakeholders. Press Ganey powers the Human Experience (HX) Platform - a comprehensive experience and research technology platform that brings together CX (Customer Experience), Employee Experience (EX), Patient Experience (PX) and Market Research. It serves more than 43,000 clients globally across healthcare, financial services, hospitality, market research, professional services, retail, and technology. Press Ganey is recognized by Gartner^® as a Leader in the Magic Quadrant™ for Voice of the Customer (VoC) Platforms.

About the Press Ganey Signature Report Series

The Press Ganey Signature Report Series defines the annual conversation around human experience and performance across industries. Powered by one of the most expansive and integrated primary data ecosystems in the market, the series draws on millions of employee, consumer, member, and customer voices, alongside operational and outcomes data, to uncover the system-level forces shaping trust, loyalty, safety, and engagement. By connecting experience, culture, and performance at scale, Press Ganey provides a uniquely comprehensive view of the forces shaping outcomes across industries.

In healthcare, Press Ganey draws on one of the industry's most comprehensive and integrated data sets, spanning safety culture, workforce engagement, patient experience, clinical outcomes, and the nation's largest Patient Safety Organization.

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