CAOP Interprofessional Communication and Collaboration — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In the ISBAR framework for clinical handover, what does each letter stand for?
- Inform, Summarise, Brief, Act, Review
- Introduce, Symptoms, Biology, Analysis, Response
- Identify, Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation (Correct answer)
- Investigate, Summarise, Balance, Advise, Record
Correct answer: Identify, Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation
ISBAR (Identify, Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation) is the structured handover tool recommended by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care for clear, concise communication between clinicians.
Question 2: A prescription for a child shows a dose ten times higher than the usual maximum. What should the pharmacist do first?
- Dispense the usual dose and label it accordingly
- Contact the prescriber to clarify the dose before dispensing, then document the outcome (Correct answer)
- Refuse to dispense and return the prescription to the parent
- Dispense as written because the prescriber is responsible
Correct answer: Contact the prescriber to clarify the dose before dispensing, then document the outcome
Pharmacists must not dispense a potentially harmful dose, and they also can't change a prescription on their own. The right step is to contact the prescriber, agree on a correction, and document the intervention.
Question 3: What is the main purpose of the 'teach-back' method in patient counselling?
- To confirm understanding by asking the patient to explain the instructions in their own words (Correct answer)
- To test the patient's medical knowledge
- To save time by skipping written information
- To let the patient teach family members
Correct answer: To confirm understanding by asking the patient to explain the instructions in their own words
Teach-back is a health-literacy technique. The patient restates the key information, which shows the pharmacist any misunderstanding that needs correcting before the patient leaves.
Question 4: A patient with limited English needs counselling on a new anticoagulant. What is the best approach?
- Ask the patient's 12-year-old child to interpret
- Give written English information and suggest a translation app
- Speak slowly and loudly in English
- Use a professional interpreter, such as through TIS National (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Use a professional interpreter, such as through TIS National
Professional interpreters (in Australia, TIS National offers a free service to pharmacies for eligible consultations) give accurate, confidential communication. Using family members, especially children, risks errors, omissions and breaches of privacy.
Question 5: Which action best reduces medication errors when a patient moves from hospital to community care?
- Telling the patient to keep taking all their pre-admission medicines
- Faxing the discharge prescription only
- Giving the GP and community pharmacy a reconciled medication list that shows changes and the reasons for them (Correct answer)
- Asking the patient to remember which medicines were changed
Correct answer: Giving the GP and community pharmacy a reconciled medication list that shows changes and the reasons for them
A reconciled list that records started, stopped and changed medicines, with the reasons, gives the next clinicians the full picture. This prevents omissions, duplications and patients restarting medicines that were ceased, which are common errors at transitions of care.
Question 6: Which of these is an open-ended question that is best for assessing a patient's adherence?
- Are you taking your tablets every day?
- How have you been taking this medicine over the past week? (Correct answer)
- You haven't missed any doses, have you?
- Do you take it in the morning?
Correct answer: How have you been taking this medicine over the past week?
Open-ended questions invite the patient to describe what they actually do, which uncovers adherence problems and misconceptions. Closed or leading questions get a 'yes' or 'no' answer and often hide non-adherence.
