What job performance changes might indicate chemical impairment?

• A. Inconsistent patient assignments
• B. Excellent medication reconciliation
• C. Difficulty meeting deadlines
• D. Consistently high accuracy

Answer: (C)

Chemical impairment often shows up as a drop in reliability and task performance. When substance use affects attention, judgment, and processing speed, completing tasks becomes harder, leading to missed or delayed work. Difficulty meeting deadlines is the clearest sign among the options because it directly reflects a decline in consistency and efficiency that impairment can cause. The other items describe strengths or neutral factors—excellent medication reconciliation indicates carefulness and accuracy, consistently high accuracy shows solid competence, and inconsistent patient assignments could stem from workload or scheduling issues rather than impairment. So the red flag that best fits chemical impairment is trouble in keeping up with deadlines.