After reconstituting a vial of powdered medication with 10 mL of sterile water, the label now reads '500 mg/2 mL.' If the prescribed dose is 750 mg, how many milliliters should the nurse administer?

A. Medication reconciliation: Medication reconciliation involves reviewing and verifying a patient’s complete medication list during transitions of care, such as admission, transfer, or discharge. This process ensures accuracy, prevents omissions or duplications, and reduces the risk of adverse drug events.

B. Therapeutic drug monitoring: Therapeutic drug monitoring focuses on measuring specific drug levels in the patient’s blood to maintain a therapeutic range, not on reviewing the medication list during transfers.

C. Pharmacokinetics: Pharmacokinetics is the study of how the body absorbs, distributes, metabolizes, and excretes medications. While important for dosing, it does not involve reviewing a patient’s medication list.

D. Incident reporting: Incident reporting involves documenting errors, near misses, or adverse events in clinical practice. Reviewing medications during transfer is a preventive action, not an incident report.

A. It provides a unique identifier that can be scanned to verify the right drug and dose: Barcodes on drug labels allow electronic verification against the patient’s medication order, ensuring the correct drug, dose, and route are administered, thereby reducing medication errors.

B. It lists the side effects of the medication: Side effects are typically included in package inserts or medication guides, not encoded in barcodes.

C. It ensures the medication is genuine and not counterfeit: While barcodes may help with inventory and traceability, their primary purpose is not to guarantee authenticity but to verify the correct medication and dose.

D. It indicates the expiration date of the medication: Expiration information is printed separately on the label and is not inherently conveyed by the barcode.