Good communication leads to good teamwork and good decisions, so we want to be rigorous and prudent in how we send and receive information. In other words, “It’s not what I say, it’s what you hear!”
It is important that the sender relays information in the correct way, paying attention to tone of voice, inflection, and the words they use, and confirming that the information has been received correctly.
Why should we do this? To prevent wrong assumptions and misunderstandings that could cause us to make wrong decisions.
Not hearing or understanding information clearly and/or forgetting to pass along information is a safety risk. The way to prevent errors or misunderstandings when communicating is to use the following error prevention tool.
Clarifying questions probe for understanding and can be asked by the sender or by the receiver. Studies have shown that the probability of making a wrong assumption is reduced two and a half times when you ask clarifying questions. Letter and numeric clarifications are a good practice to use when words, letters, or numbers sound alike. Phonetic clarification is a tool that can be used to reliably communicate. It is critical that we use phonetic clarification when we are communicating important information such as patient names, procedure or test names, or medication names. See below for a recommended alphabet to support letter clarification.
When using number clarifications, you should say the number and then say the digits to avoid confusion with sound-alike numbers such as fifteen and fifty. The best times to use numeric clarifications are when communicating medication doses, critical lab values, equipment set points, and patient identification numbers. A best practice is to commit to saying “15 mg … that’s one-five.” This method is clear and concise, and we use the separating word “that’s” to avoid any confusion between the number and digits.
For more information about Reliably Communicating, sign up for HRO Training via the Cooper Learning Network or check out our HRO website which includes articles about all of the Jersey STRONG safe and reliable error prevention tools.