Have you ever made a critical mistake while on the job? How did you handle the situation?

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Kaiser Permanente has a very thorough written code of conduct, titled "Principles of Responsibility." If you take the time to review this on their website prior to your interview, you'll see that acting with accountability and always doing the right thing are key to the industry reputation that they hold. Your interviewer will want to hear about your sense of accountability. Think about a mistake you made in the past and come ready to openly discuss the situation. What will be key in your answer is showing how you took all steps necessary to fix what went wrong and communicated clearly to all stakeholders involved.

"Yes, but fortunately was able to learn some important lessons from one particular situation that I would bring to your team at Kaiser Permanente. As a patient scheduler, I currently work the phone lines and our online messaging portal for scheduling patients. In one of my first weeks on the job in my current role, I had a patient call to reschedule their appointment the day prior and I gave them other available options weeks out from there. The patient verified the appointment time they would like and we ended the call. Before changing their appointment in the system, I proceeded to answer some portal messages and went about my day. The next day, the patient that had called obviously didn't report to their appointment and my colleague on that day caught this and called the patient directly. My colleague found out that she had called and who she spoke to and we discussed the situation the next day. In addition to looking unprofessional and inconveniencing the patient, we also could have scheduled another patient that day. I learned that taking care of and finishing one task at a time was vital and will never forget this lesson."

Anonymous Answer

"Once I was filling a prescription for 90 days 90 tablets. I didn't notice we have new 90 tablet bottles instead of the 30 tablet bottles, and I filled 3 of 90 tablets bottle instead of 3 of 30 tablets. When the pharmacist noticed I fix my mistake, and from that day, I double-check the quantity in the bottles in case the quantity changes."

Rachelle's Feedback

Great work giving your example and then highlighting how you corrected the error. You also made sure to take action so that this did not happen again. These are exactly the steps that an interviewer would be looking for.

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Anonymous Answer

"Early in my career, I injected 1.5 ccs of lidocaine intrathecally instead of 12 ccs of contrast, because I did not look at the bottle label the technologist was holding. I was filled with dread, but quickly put the patient in reverse Trendelenburg, called anesthesia because this is a spinal anesthesia injection. I continually reassured the patient she was ok and transferred care to anesthesia. Every time I draw a medication now, the technologist will show me the label and I label all my syringes. I have put in place a safety measure to prevent this from happening again."

Amanda's Feedback

This is a great example! You've not only shared a critical mistake, but illustrated that you took corrective action immediately, reassured the patient, and put measures in place to prevent the mistake from occurring again. The only thing I would add is to confirm that this mistake - nor one like it with another injection - has occurred since. This more clearly shows that you learned from the mistake and that the corrective action you took is effective.

Anonymous Answer

"While working in my previous job, we had to be careful as we had to review transactions for possible fraud. Being talkative in nature, I was having a conversation with a customer who did not bank with _____, and being distracted by the conversation I cashed a fraudulent check. Realizing what happened, I immediately called the account owner, froze the account, and had the banker properly file a claim. The amount wasn’t enough to put me on a written notice, but moving forward I paid more attention to the transaction and went a step further to calling the maker of the check to confirm the amount and name of the person it was written to."

Jaymie's Feedback

You effectively used the STAR method here in your response to help the interviewer understand the situation. You took ownership of your mistake, took immediate steps to rectify the situation, and put a plan in place to avoid making the same mistake in the future. Excellent job!

Anonymous Answer

"Yes, I made an error in my current job where the food in the work orders I made was not measured out correctly. There was a specific amount of food that went into our work orders and I weighed them out incorrectly. When I realized this, I immediately told my manager and told her how it was my mistake. I redid all the work orders that were messed up so they wouldn't be sent out wrong. I apologized for my error and made sure to double-check all work orders after that day to ensure it would not happen again."

Jaymie's Feedback

Perfect! This question is less about the actual mistake and more about how you handled it. You took ownership, reported it to your manager, and immediately remedied the error. It's also important to demonstrate that you learned from your mistake and have grown as a result, just as you did here.

Anonymous Answer

"Before EMRs and electronic prescriptions were available, I saw a patient whose name was very similar to a celebrity's name. We joked about this, and the patient said that the name similarity sometimes led to confusing and humorous interactions with people. I wrote two prescriptions and was about to hand them to him. But first I double-checked the prescriptions, as usual, and noticed that I had written the celebrity's name instead of his. I apologized, and said, "Whoops, sorry about that. This is a perfect example of what we were just talking about." The patient was very understanding and laughed."

Jaymie's Feedback

Good example! You took ownership, apologized, and quickly corrected the situation.