what are common times to run IV's in ?

I am a new nurse working in a CCU/CVICU area and was wondering if some of you seasoned nurses can give me some input about how long certain IV's should go in such as calcium, potassium, mag, etc. I know a lot of this comes along with experience but these are the types of things i sit around and think about

Thanks, any input is appreciated!

[CNL2B]

I can't tell you about meds you didn't ask about, but of the ones you did, this is how I do it (per facility guidelines):

Mag - 1 gm over 15-20 minutes, 2 gm over 1/2 hour

K - 20meq/hour MAX, must be on cardiac monitoring to run it that fast. The floors with no tele can run it at 10meq/hour only.

Calcium gluconate/chloride - I dilute in 20-30cc and put it on a mini-infuser. Usually goes in over 20-30 minutes.

I think this stuff is in most med books also (administration times.) That's where we get it from, mostly -- we've just memorized it over time.

[Amy10BSN]

thanks! i was looking on our online drug guide at work (lexi-comp) and it gives parameters. i know that i will learn it all eventually with time and experience, thanks for your help.

[lkwashington]

Dont forget your pharmacy also set times how long it should run but you can base it on the patient needs. You can by an infusing book it helps a whole lot,

[TangoLima]

I have never seen Mag infused in less than 4 hours. Im not saying it cant be done, I'm just staying I've never seen it. Maybe that is our hospital pharmacy's policy. IDK.

We run K+ at 10 mEq per hour unless we have an order to run faster. That includes being in the ICU. I just had a patient last night with a critical K of 2.6. The MD ordered 80 mEq over 8 hours. So, even with the critical K, the MD still ordered 10 mEq per hour.

Don't have a lot of experience with the other ones, so I can't tell you for sure.

[meandragonbrett]

Mag Sulfate= 1gram/hr

Calcium 1gram/hr

Potassium 10 or 20 mEq/hr

Kphos/NaPhos- 10mmol/hr

[Maevish, ASN, RN]

Where I work we have to run 10mEq K over an hour, Mg 2g over 2 hours, and Calcium over 15 min. I wonder why our times are so different from other facilities?

Hmmmmm

[pgotm]

K 10meq over 1 hour IV/Mg 2gm rider over 2 hours/Las Vegas RN

[MoLee228]

At my hospital:

Mag is always 1g/hour

Calcium is 1-2g/hour

This is different from what others have said: we run K (10-20meq) over 30 mins-1 hour (central line). 1 hour if no ectopy, no rush. But if they are having any ectopy or it was below 3.5 we always run over 30 mins.

[8jimi8ICURN]

A preceptor once told me that he had run K+ @60/ hour before. Anyone else heard of this?

[stram87]

Our policy is K 10meq/hr in peripherial IV w/o cardiac monitoring. 20meq/hr in central line with caridac monitoring. I can't imagine running 60meq/hr. Never done it or heard of anyone doing that.

[TangoLima]

At our hospital:

K+ infused at 10 mEq/hr even in the ICU.

Mg++ infused at 2 gm over 4 hrs. This is per the pharmacy's recommendations. Maybe it COULD be infused faster, but I have never done it.

The others I don't end up doing very often, so I don't know off the top of my head.