Practice 50 Situational Nursing interview questions covering clinical judgment, patient safety, and critical response scenarios.
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Kelly Burlison is an experienced healthcare and quality measurement professional with experience interviewing in the healthcare field focusing on IT.
Before starting an IV and administering the medication, in this situation, the nurse should look in the patient's electronic health record and review the physician's medication order to verify they have the correct medication, dosage, and administration duration. This is a safety protocol that is standard in nursing practice to prevent medical errors, as administering the incorrect medication, incorrect dosage, and/or incorrect duration can have dire consequences to the patient. The interviewer is asking this question to assess the candidate's understanding and regular practice for such precautions. To effectively answer this question, the candidate should indicate that they would verify the medication, dosage, and administration duration by reviewing the order in the electronic health record. A more successful answer to this question could include examples of how the candidate prevented a colleague from committing a medical error by reminding them to review this information, helped develop training materials on the matter for their unit, or even helped change protocols to improve compliance and patient outcomes.

Kelly Burlison is an experienced healthcare and quality measurement professional with experience interviewing in the healthcare field focusing on IT.
"Before I did anything to the patient, I would go to the patient's electronic record and verify the drug name, the dosage, and the administration duration. This is so important because so many times, nurses are busy or get distracted and accidentally grab the wrong medication, dosage, or set the incorrect administration duration. A couple of years ago, we had several new nursing graduates working on my unit, and we had several medical errors related to this issue take place. Because I am so passionate about this issue, I helped my supervisor develop training materials to help remind my colleagues to verify these medication elements before they administer IV drugs. While these materials did not eliminate medication errors, they helped reduce them."
"Before administering the IV medication, I would check the patient's wristband and/or verbally confirm the patient's name and date of birth with the patient. Then I would verify the medication order in the patient's electronic medical record, ensuring that the medication, dose, route, and duration all matched the information that I have."

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Written by Dianne Barnard
50 Questions & Answers • Situational Nursing

By Dianne

By Dianne