Tell me about a time a breakdown in communication caused an error.
When patients have a multidisciplinary team of providers, it's possible communication breakdowns will occur that will result in an error from time to time. Think about all the steps in the patient process, from intake, admission, assessment, physician orders, transfers, medications, charting and documentation, discharge, etc. Give an example to demonstrate to the interviewer that when an error occurs, you can take ownership, find the root cause, overcome it, learn from the mistake, correct it, and even prevent it from happening in the future.
"During one of my clinical rotation shifts, a floor nurse told me a patient needed to be taken down to the lab, so I went in and helped him in the wheelchair and took him down. When I got to the lab, they did not have any orders on file, and the patient was confused. When I called the nurse's station, they said the patient was to be taken to radiology. I was trying to assist the other nurse, but I should have paused and checked the doctor's order and the patient's name before getting him and taking him downstairs. It wasn't a major issue, but the lack of communication or understanding caused confusion for the patient and the other departments and could have easily been prevented."
"Years ago, I took a verbal order from a physician over the phone regarding a medication dosage change for a patient. I documented the information and gave the patient the increased dosage. When the doctor came to the facility to do patient rounds, she read the document and said it was incorrect and that she had told me a different dosage. She may have misspoken on the phone, or I could have misunderstood her, but either way, it resulted in a medication error. Thankfully, it was not a narcotic or similar medication, so no major issues occurred, but it was still a medication error that could have been prevented. After that, I always repeated what I heard and triple-confirmed those changes before making them with the patient."
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