Sarah Smithson, MD. MPH
Vice President of Partnerships
Intend Health Strategies
Sarah Smithson is an internal medicine physician and Vice President of Partnerships for Intend Health Strategies, a non-profit organization committed to helping healthcare professionals thrive in the workplace through the practice of Relational Leadership. She thrives in interprofessional collaborations around leadership development and innovation in health systems, communication, and team-based care delivery. She brings over a decade of experience in clinical practice, quality improvement, and medical education leadership to her work with Intend Health Strategies. Sarah earned a dual MD/MPH degree from Emory University in Atlanta and completed internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

Presenting at the Nexus Summit:

Seminar Description: Psychological safety – the shared belief that team members can take interpersonal risks is a relational factor that is essential to high functioning teams and high-quality health care. For example, hospitals with increased psychological safety experienced significantly greater reductions in risk-standardized mortality rates following acute myocardial infarction. Cardiothoracic surgery teams at an academic health center found that enhanced psychological safety significantly decreased surgical errors and nurse turnover at 12 months. Psychological safety matters and requires…