As you learned earlier, communication is a foundation of patient safety. Patient safety risks can arise from miscommunication.
Let us look at a couple case scenarios in which miscommunication could contribute to near miss or actual patient safety events.
Case Scenario 1
The phlebotomist was unable to collect the 7 am blood draw on an inpatient because the patient refused phlebotomy. The phlebotomist documented in the patient record that the patient refused phlebotomy, but the phlebotomist failed to communicate this to the provider per protocol. It was not until a few hours later that the provider realized that the results were not available on the patient. Because of this miscommunication, the patient's treatment was delayed.
Case Scenario 2
The bench technologist had a critical result on a patient. The technologist called the floor and relayed the critical result to the nurse. Both the nurse and the technologist failed to follow the protocol to repeat the information. The nurse told the doctor that the critical result was on a different patient with the same last name who was on the same floor. The doctor checked the medical record before changing treatment so there was no harm to the patient.
