Description
August 18, 2026 | 1-2pm | Virtual via Zoom | $15 (or FREE to CCSME members [members, use your coupon code] – Become a member HERE)
Part 3 in CCSME’s series “From Policy to Practice: The Leadership in Action Series (Operationalizing Culture, Safety, and Sustainability in Healthcare)”. Join us for the rest of the series:
• June 26: Advancing Policy and Practice in Behavioral Healthcare: Designing Systems That Support Shared Decision-Making
• July 21: Leading Under Pressure: How Leadership Behavior Shapes System Performance
• September 15: Beyond Burnout: Lifestyle Medicine for Leaders and Teams
Description:
Psychological safety is often positioned as a cultural aspiration, yet many healthcare organizations continue to function within environments shaped by fear, silence, avoidance, and workforce strain. These patterns are not always intentionally created; rather, they are frequently reinforced over time through legacy leadership practices, chronic system stress, and normalized operational behaviors. This session examines psychological safety as an operational and leadership function not simply a workplace ideal. Participants will explore how breakdowns in trust, communication, and accountability impact workforce sustainability, team dynamics, and organizational performance. Through a practical and systems-informed lens, this session will help leaders recognize conditioned cultural patterns that contribute to disengagement and dysfunction while identifying actionable approaches to support culture repair, healthier communication, and more sustainable team environments in high-stress healthcare settings.
Objectives:
1. Define psychological safety within the context of healthcare operations, leadership, and workforce sustainability.
2. Recognize organizational behaviors and communication patterns that contribute to culture erosion, disengagement, and reduced team trust.
3. Develop practical approaches to strengthen accountability, communication, and psychological safety within teams and organizations.
Presenter:
Cristina Oliveri, MHA, is a healthcare leader with 15+ years of experience across Federally Qualified Health Centers, hospital systems, and community-based organizations. She is currently serving as Chief Operating Officer of a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in Maine, overseeing primary care, laboratory, dental, behavioral health, quality, compliance, and risk programs. Her work centers on leadership psychology within complex healthcare systems specifically how power, chronic stress, trauma history, and role ambiguity shape organizational culture. She is particularly interested in how reform efforts succeed or fail based on leadership behavior, nervous system activation, and the degree of psychological safety present within teams. In addition to systems reform, she incorporates evidence-informed lifestyle medicine and stress regulation principles as part of leadership sustainability. Organizational resilience requires leaders who understand both structural design and physiological stress response.
Contact hours:
1 contact hours for physicians. This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of the Hanley Center for Health Leadership and Education and CCSME. The Hanley Center for Health Leadership and Education is accredited by the Maine Medical Association Committee on Continuing Medical Education and Accreditation to provide continuing medical education for physicians. The Hanley Center for Health Leadership and Education designates this regularly scheduled series for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit ™. Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
1 contact hours for nurses. CCSME is approved as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the Northeast Multistate Division Education Unit, an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation. Provider #4002961
1 contact hour for social workers, licensed clinical professional counselors, and behavioral health professionals
1 category I contact hour for psychologists. CCSME is a pre-approved sponsor and provider of Professional Education Activities for Psychologists.
1 contact hours for Alcohol and Drug Counselors. This course has been approved by Co-Occurring Collaborative Serving Maine (CCSME), as a NAADAC Approved Education Provider. NAADAC Provider #324712. CCSME is responsible for all aspects of the programming.
1 contact hours for CHES. CCSME is a designated provider of continuing education contact hours (CECH) in health education by the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing, Inc.
