Teach the exception before handing work to AI

Before an AI assistant starts drafting standard delivery updates, show the colleague who will review them what changes when the package is damaged. In this hypothetical workflow, an ordinary delay can go through the standard reply queue. A report of damage goes to the colleague authorised to assess a claim. If both reports receive the delay reply, the customer may lose time getting the damage recorded.

The US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality describes a clinical communication method called teach-back: ask the person to explain the instructions in their own words, clarify anything you did not explain well and ask again. The agency also recommends asking a person to show how they would carry out a procedure when the action itself matters.

In a 2015 study by Richard Griffey and colleagues, emergency department patients with limited health literacy who received teach-back understood self-care and follow-up instructions better than patients who received standard discharge instructions. The study measured understanding at the end of the visit at one hospital. The workplace exercise below adapts the communication method; the study did not test handovers or AI.

Show the detail that changes the route

Use two dummy messages. In the first, the customer asks when a late package will arrive. In the second, a customer says the package arrived with a cracked casing. Open the team’s written procedure together and point out the words that trigger the change of queue. Show where to send the report and what information the next person needs.

Let the colleague refer to the procedure. Ask them to show where they would put each case and tell you what led to the choice. If they send the second message to the delay queue, check whether your example made the trigger clear or the procedure buried it. Revise the explanation or procedure, then try another dummy case with different wording.

Make the handover usable on the next shift

Leave a short note next to the queue with the trigger, the route and the role responsible. Include a backup if that person is unavailable and say what to do when the message is ambiguous. Keep damage claims with an authorised person; a colleague’s successful demonstration does not establish whether the assistant can spot the exception.

Sources and further reading

• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality: Use the Teach-Back Method, Tool 5 (2024)
• Griffey et al.: The impact of teach-back on comprehension of discharge instructions and satisfaction among emergency patients with limited health literacy (2015)

Sources checked 4 November 2026. Prepared with AI assistance and editorial review.