I'm still in training to become a nurse, and am having a lot of difficulty trying to find some information, so I'm hoping someone here can help me.
When giving an IV medication, sometimes the doctor's orders will give you a range of medication you can give (eg. 12.5-25mg q6h). How do you decide how much you give the client? Is it based on severity of symptoms, or something else?
The second part to this question is when the drug monograph also gives a range of how much solution to dilute the medication in (eg. Dilute dose in 50 or 100 mL NS over 20-30 minutes).
My question is, how do you decide how much to dilute the solution in, and for how long?
Question, so are you saying such orders as "Morphine 2 - 4 mg q 4 hrs PRN pain" is not acceptable anymore? The orders must now say 2 mg for pain 5-6; 3 mg pain 7-8 and 4mg pain 9-10?
Yes. It still doesn't happen frequently but we got in trouble by Joint Commission over it.
malestunurse
123 Posts
We still have loose ranges for PRN meds here in New Zealand.