7 Essential Medication Aide Interview Questions to Ask

A certified medication aide (CMA) can be a valuable addition to your healthcare team. Not only do they hold specialized training to facilitate medication administration, but they also help alleviate the workload of your nursing staff. Asking the right medication aide interview questions will help you hire the person that is best suited for this role.

While posting a detailed job description can help attract qualified candidates, the interview is where you can really determine how an individual would apply their qualifications in practice. To help you with this process, we put together a list of essential interview questions to ask when you’re ready to hire your next medication aide.

Medication Aide Interview Questions

Medication aides need to be highly detail-oriented and compassionate toward patients who they’ll be interacting with on a regular basis. With this in mind, here are seven interview questions that will help you assess these important qualities.

1. Why do you want to be a medication aide?

This question is a great opener because it explores the motivations of a candidate. You can get an introductory sense of their career intentions and assess how well they align with the needs of the role. As medication aides typically work in long-term care settings, you can also gauge their interest in working with your specific patient or resident population.

2. What qualities do you think a good medication aide should have?

This is a good precursor to other medication aide interview questions, because it allows you to get a sense of what qualities a candidate may bring to the role if hired. Medication aides must be adept at following directions, communicating, and delivering patient-centered care. You can listen for answers that support these skills, also getting a read on how well the candidate understands the key responsibilities of the role.

3. What steps would you take to monitor a patient after they take their medications?

A medication aide will not only be responsible for administering medications, but also reporting to their supervising nurses if a patient has any adverse reactions. This question will allow you to gauge how attentive a candidate is to every step of their care process — even after their primary tasks are completed. Additionally, you can get a sense of a candidate’s willingness to carry out other patient-related care tasks and their approach to communication with members of the healthcare team.

4. What are some strategies you use to prevent medication errors?

To become a medication aide, CNA experience and other certification training is typically required. Because of this, a candidate should already have a foundational understanding of proper medication handling. This question will allow you to gauge their knowledge of employing basic safeguards against medication errors.

In particular, you can assess how a candidate makes considerations in context to the five rights of medication administration (i.e., right patient, right drug, right time, right dose, and right route). The comprehensiveness of their answer can really show how detail-oriented they are toward one of the most important aspects of the job.

5. How would you handle a situation where a patient is reluctant or scared to take their medications?

Medication administration doesn’t always go smoothly, and there are many reasons why a patient may refuse or feel reluctant to take their medications. This question allows you to assess a candidate’s response to common situations and their ability to problem-solve. Will the candidate be able to showcase empathy and employ strong communication skills, even when things don’t go as planned? These are all important traits to look out for.

6. Tell me about a time that you had to work through a conflict with another coworker in a healthcare setting. How did you handle it?

A medication aide will be working directly under other nursing professionals, so it’s important that they are able to function well within a team setting. This question allows you to assess a candidate’s soft skills when handling tougher interpersonal situations and gauge their overall sense of professionalism.

7. What infection control precautions would you take before administering medications?

There are many modes of medication administration that could lead to preventable infection if proper precautions aren’t taken. Infection control is an important part of a medication aide’s training, so a candidate should be able to showcase knowledge in this area. Additionally, the way a candidate answers this question can help you get a sense of their commitment to upholding the best care and safety standards.

Fill Your Workforce With Qualified Health Professionals

Preparing medication aide interview questions is one of many steps needed to find qualified health professionals for your team. If you’re overwhelmed by the hiring process, we’ve got your back. Reach out to us today and learn about our wide range of staffing solutions that can help you build a stronger workforce.