Medication Orders by Telephone

Note: NANB Practice Standard: Medications, stresses that telephone orders should only be used when there is no other alternative in receiving an order. The following article highlights information that NPs need to be aware of when giving telephone orders and RNs need to be aware of when receiving telephone orders. COMMUNICATION IS COMMONLY cited as a contributing factor to adverse events causing client harm (Baker et al., 2004). There are many reasons that communication failures can occur, such as poor handwriting, transcription errors, lack of verification, lack of integration of information, and ineffective team functioning.