A nurse is instructed to administer 60 mEq of an iron supplement to an anemic client three times a day. The iron supplement botle contains 30 mEq in 10 mL.
How many milliliters of the supplement should the nurse administer in a day?

This numeric form is appropriate, according to the Joint Commission, because it does not use a trailing zero after a decimal point, which is a common cause of medication errors and should be avoided. A trailing zero may be misread or misinterpreted as a larger dose 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 error¹². Therefore, the Joint Commission requires that a trailing zero may be used only when required to demonstrate the level of precision of the value being reported, such as for laboratory results, imaging studies that report the size of lesions, or catheter/tube sizes. It may not be used in medication orders or other medication-related documentation.

The other options are not appropriate numeric forms because:

a) 3.0 uses a trailing zero after a decimal point, which poses a risk of confusion or error.

b) 0.30 uses a trailing zero after a decimal point, which poses a risk of confusion or error.

c) 0.03 is not equivalent to 0.3, as it is 10 times smaller.

The nurse should administer 60 mL of the supplement in a day.

This answer is correct because it is based on a simple unit conversion and multiplication calculation. The nurse can convert 60 mEq to 20 mL by using the ratio given on the botle label, as follows:

30 mEq / 10 mL = 60 mEq / x mL

Cross-multiplying and solving for x gives:

x = 20 mL

Therefore, the nurse should administer 20 mL of the supplement to deliver 60 mEq of the medication to the patient. Since the order is for three times a day, the nurse should multiply 20 mL by 3 to get the total daily dose, which is 60 mL.