Calculating medicine in IV Pump

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My daughter is a nursing student and was asked the following question. She has asked several nurses and everyone gets a different answer. QUESTION: 100 mg of medication A should be added to a 250 ml of NS and infused over 20 min. The drop factor is 20 gtts /ml. How many gtts/min should the piggy back run? How many ml/hr should the pump be set? Thanks for your help.

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

It would be set at 750ml/hr.750 x 20=15000.Divided by 60=250.It would run at 250gtts/min

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Specializes in Emergency Department.

I would be willing to bet that the 100 mg is a distractor. This is "simply" a rate problem. One way to solve the problem is to convert the rate to how many ml/hr, then divide by 60. That gives the ml/min. From there, multiply by 20 and you've got your gtt rate per minute.

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Specializes in Gerontological, cardiac, med-surg, peds.

Please see the attached. I have worked out this problem in three steps. Hope this helps! :)

Ratio Proportion Problem.docx

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