Before you give that drug!

Disappearing Decimal Alert

Decimal points and zeros may be small items, but they're big deals in medication orders and administration records. When you get a drug order, study it closely. If a dose doesn't sound right, maybe a decimal point was left out or incorrectly placed.

For instance, an order that calls for “.5 mg lorazepam IV” may be mistaken for “5 mg of lorazepam IV.” The correct way to write this order is to use a zero as a placeholder before the decimal point. The order would then become “0.5 mg lorazepam IV.”