Background: Verbal orders—those that are spoken aloud in person or by telephone—offer more room for error than orders that are written or sent electronically. Verbal orders misunderstanding produce variety of errors affect patient safety. Verbal orders misunderstanding could be fetal, and the effect of wrong explained verbal orders can hurt medical team and patients.

Aim of the study: This study aims to identify if verbally given medical orders have harmful effect on patient safety

Method: A quantitative cross-sectional design was adopted to identify verbal orders potential risk on patient safety. The setting was at North of West Bank Palestinian hospital that include governmental and nongovernmental. The subject was all nurses with minimum of one year of experience who works at emergency or intensive care units. A sample of 147 nurses was selected by convenience sampling technique in the study. Data were collected and analyzed using SPSS.

Results: Verbal orders have potential effects on patient safety, and should be managed to minimize this effect. Many factors play an important role in this effect, and the most important one is communication at nurses-physician level.

Conclusions: Any failure in communication can impose harm to patient and impose negative effect on patient safety. Communication between doctors and nurses need to be improved through limited verbal orders to urgent situations where immediate written or electronic communication is not feasible. To improve patient care safety, set guidelines for clear and effective communication of verbal orders should be present.

Keywords: Nurse, verbal orders, patient safety, hospital, Najah National University, communication, shift.