Giving IV meds

[DawnE]

Does your unit have a policy/protocol for giving of IV meds?

What I am looking for is:

What do you prime med lines with...the med or N/S or D5?

How long do you give meds over? Now I know this depends on the med...say Gent for example...we give the med over 20 minutes and the flush over 10, but depending on the volume of med, and volume of flush neccessary to get all of the med to the main line fluids, is the med really going infusing in 30 minutes?

We use Medfusion pumps.

Thanks a bunch,

[mac23]

We have a policy but not everyone follows it. Some run 30 minute meds over 20 minutes then do the 10 min flush (that's the official policy) some run med over 30 minutes then run the flush over 10 minutes (that's how they were taught and just haven't changed). We prime our lines with N/S or the med if there is enough to do that. The type of flush depends on if the baby has fluids running or not. We dilute all of our IV meds. We also use medfusion pumps. But things and policies are always changing around my unit so next month there could be a totally different policy.

Does your unit have a policy/protocol for giving of IV meds?

What I am looking for is:

What do you prime med lines with...the med or N/S or D5?

How long do you give meds over? Now I know this depends on the med...say Gent for example...we give the med over 20 minutes and the flush over 10, but depending on the volume of med, and volume of flush neccessary to get all of the med to the main line fluids, is the med really going infusing in 30 minutes?

We use Medfusion pumps.

Thanks a bunch,

[BittyBabyGrower, MSN, RN]

For the med itself, we use the Neofax and a book that has been compiled by our peds pharmacy.

As for priming tubing, we always prime the tubing with med...we flush with .5 ml NS before the med if the med is incompatible with our running fluids or going thru an IIP or Hep Lock. If it is compatible then we just run the med, then set our flush on our pump for 5 minutes...we use microtubing that only uses .2 ml to prime. If the med is compatible then we don't flush the tubing, just hook it to the port nearest the patient.

[natasha700]

It really depends I work at various NICU units and it is pretty standard. Most I will agree that we prime the tubing with the med and run it over at least 30 minutes unless its Vancomycin which is about an hour! The pharmacy puts extra med in the syringe for that purpose. If the tubing is more than the med we simply put NS behind the med and run it that way. And if you are truly blessed on facility I work in the meds come up primed and ready to run just double check the dosage with another nurse. :-)