The practical nurse (PN) finds a postoperative client lying in bed with an unsecured surgical dressing. After reinforcing the dressing, which follow-up assessment is most important for the PN to implement?

The correct answer is choiceB. Verify completion of all new prescriptions. This task is crucial to ensure patient safety and proper medication administration.

Choice A rationale:

Clean up and organize the nurses’ workstation: While maintaining an organized workstation is important for efficiency and reducing stress, it is not the highest priority task. Patient safety and care tasks take precedence over organizational tasks.

Choice B rationale:

Verify completion of all new prescriptions: This is the highest priority because verifying new prescriptions ensures that patients receive the correct medications as prescribed by their healthcare providers.This step is critical to prevent medication errors, which can have serious or even fatal consequences. Ensuring the accuracy of medication orders directly impacts patient safety and care quality.

Choice C rationale:

Calculate and record intake and output totals: Monitoring and recording intake and output is important for assessing a patient’s fluid balance and overall health status. However, this task can be delegated to another team member and does not take precedence over verifying medication orders, which is more time-sensitive and directly related to patient safety.

Choice D rationale:

Write a narrative shift summary for each client: Documenting a shift summary is essential for continuity of care and communication between healthcare providers. However, this task can be completed after ensuring that all critical patient care tasks, such as verifying new prescriptions, are addressed first.

The correct answer is choice C. Red welts widespread over the chest.

Choice A rationale:

Ulceration on the corner of the upper lip does not indicate a need for loratadine administration. Loratadine is an antihistamine commonly used to relieve symptoms of allergies such as sneezing, runny nose, and itchy or watery eyes. Ulceration on the lip is not associated with an allergic reaction.

Choice B rationale:

Ecchymosis and petechiae on the legs are not related to the need for loratadine. These findings suggest potential bleeding or clotting disorders, and loratadine does not address such issues.

Choice C rationale:

Red welts widespread over the chest are indicative of hives (urticaria), which are often caused by allergic reactions. Loratadine can help alleviate the symptoms of hives by blocking histamine release, making it an appropriate choice for this condition.

Choice D rationale:

Red papules and pustules on the face are unlikely to be treated with loratadine. These skin manifestations may be related to various dermatological conditions, but not necessarily allergic reactions that loratadine is primarily used to manage.