Good News

[Candice31]

I just passed my med surgical nursing final!!yay:roll

But we have to take a dosage caculation test and im good a regular medicine calculations but im bad at IVs and heparin calculations.

I have to get a 100% on the test. it used to be only a 85%.

Any good sites to teach you how to do this or can yall teach me?

[PedsRN1991]

Congrats on the final!!:balloons: :balloons: :balloons:

I don't know if you have specific questions about the drug test. Feel free to email if you have questions.

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

heparin calculations can easily be done using the old "dose desired divided by dose on hand" formula. you just need to include the information about the iv fluid as part of the terms.

for example, if you are to give 800 units of heparin an hour (dose desired) and you have 20,000 units in 500ml of ns (dose on hand) the term you use will end up being a fraction divided by a fraction.

800 units

/

1 hour

/

20,000 units

/

500 ml

you have to do some mathemathical manipulation to clear the fraction out of the denominator. that includes multiplying both the numerator and the denominator by the reciprocal of the denominator which is 500 ml/20,000 units. the problem now evolves into this:

800 units

/

1 hour

(dose desired)

x

500 ml

/

20,000 units

(dose on hand, reciprocal fraction)

=

20 ml/hour

(amount to give--infusion rate)

here are websites that have iv problems. do not be satisfied with just these problems. take each problem and pull out one of the factors to create a new problem to work. you'll already have the answer, you'll just have to work back to it.

http://connection.lww.com/products/morton/documents/pdfs/pt0002.pdf - 90 iv rate calculation problems! and here are the answers to all 90 http://connection.lww.com/products/morton/documents/pdfs/ak0002.pdf fully worked out and shown to you by both dimensional analysis and ratio methods!

http://academic.cuesta.edu/nursing/math.htm - bonnie and jill's practical approach to dosage calculations. a simple, easy tutorial that explains ratios and proportions, has a table of commonly used conversions and iv therapy. includes practice problems in all these categories.

http://www.nurse-center.com/studentnurse/nur11.html - nursing formulas and conversions. includes a formula on how to do iv calculations.

http://www.accd.edu/sac/nursing/math/mathindex2.html

http://home.sc.rr.com/nurdosagecal/ - med calc for nurses from central carolina technical college.

http://www.geocities.com/heartland/valley/3049/iv/clcltns.html - a quiz of 8 iv calculation questions with pictures and answers. the answers show you exactly how to set up the equations to solve the problems.

http://go.dbcc.edu/hhps/nursing/nur_1201_nur_1260c_nur1213.html - a wonderful site for practice problems with answers on iv calculations from daytona beach community college nursing department. just click on the links provided and knock yourself out!

http://www.testandcalc.com/quiz/index.asp

http://www.nursesdrughandbook.com/safe_drug_admin/calculations_compatibility/conversionsandcalculations.cfm - here are quick reference tables of conversions and calculations on one page from the nursing spectrum drug handbook. with this page of tables is information to convert from one unit of measure to another, convert between fahrenheit and celsius, and practical formulas to calculate drug dosages and rates of iv administration. nice resource!

http://www.maagnursing.com/medcal/index.php - this is a medication calculation tutorial from the university of san francisco school of nursing.