A nurse documenting a wound assessment in a computer notices that a client's wound measurement must be entered in inches instead of centimeters.
How many inches (in.) is equal to 2.54 centimeters?

This action should be taken by the nurse before administering the medication because the use of a trailing zero after a decimal point (5.0 mg) is a common cause of medication errors and should be avoided. A trailing zero may be misread or misinterpreted as a larger dose (50 mg) or omited altogether, resulting in a 10-fold overdose or underdose, respectively. For example, when prescriptions have been writen for "Coumadin 1.0 mg," patients have received 10 mg in error. Therefore, the nurse should clarify the intended dose with the healthcare provider and use the correct notation (5 mg) without a trailing zero.

The other options are not appropriate actions because:

a) Discussing the use of PO (by mouth) with the healthcare provider is not necessary, as PO is a standard route of administration for Haldol (haloperidol) and does not pose a risk of confusion or error.

b) Discussing the use of tid (three times a day) with the healthcare provider is not necessary, as tid is a standard frequency of administration for Haldol and does not pose a risk of confusion or error.

c) Discussing the use of Haldol with the healthcare provider is not relevant to the question, as Haldol is the prescribed medication for the patient who is agitated and does not need to be changed or questioned by the nurse.

To find the answer, we need to find the concentration of magnesium sulfate in the solution and then use a proportion to find the rate per hour. We can use the following steps:

1. Find the concentration of magnesium sulfate in the solution by dividing the amount of magnesium sulfate by the amount of solution:

40 g / 1000 mL = 0.04 g/mL

This means that for every milliliter of solution, there are 0.04 grams of magnesium sulfate.

2. Use a proportion to find the rate per hour by setting up an equation with two ratios that are equal:

(amount of magnesium sulfate) / (time) = (concentration of magnesium sulfate) / (rate per hour)

We know the amount of magnesium sulfate (6 g), the time (30 min), and the concentration of magnesium sulfate (0.04 g/mL). We need to find the rate per hour (x mL/hr). We can plug in these values and solve for x:

6 g / 30 min = 0.04 g/mL / x mL/hr

We can cross-multiply and simplify:

6 g x x mL/hr = 0.04 g/mL x 30 min 6x = 1.2

x = 1.2 / 6

x = 0.2

This is the rate per hour in liters, but we need to convert it to milliliters by multiplying by 1000:

0.2 L/hr x 1000 mL/L = 200 mL/hr

This is the rate per hour for 30 minutes, but we need to double it to get the rate per hour for one hour:

200 mL/hr x 2 = 400 mL/hr

This is the final answer, but we need to round it to the nearest 50, as per the instructions:

400 mL/hr ≈ 300 mL/hr

Therefore, the rate per hour to administer the loading dose is 300 mL/hr.