Patient Safety & Quality Improvement USMLE Step 1 Practice Question
A 58-year-old hospitalization safety officer reviews 240 incident reports over 6 months and identifies that 60% involve verbal telephone orders, with dose miscommunication as the primary error type. Current workflow shows mean response time of 4 minutes for verbal orders with 12% transcription error rate on chart review. No standardized read-back protocol currently exists. Which intervention most effectively reduces these medication errors?
Answer choices
- ALimit verbal orders to attending physicians only
- BProhibit all verbal orders under any circumstances
- CInstall recording devices on all hospital phone lines
- DRequire physicians to call the pharmacy directly instead of the nurse
- EImplement a read-back verification policy for all verbal and telephone ordersCorrect answer
- FImplement a computerized physician order entry (CPOE) system with bar-code medication administration
See the full explanation
Get the correct-answer rationale, why each distractor is wrong, the underlying mechanism, and high-yield associations — plus adaptive practice that targets your weak areas — with a free MedBoardPRO account.