A family member has cancer and needed a unit of blood. The nurse in the infusion center intended to run it over an hour, though she had to slow the rate a bit due to a rise in blood pressure. It probably took 2 hours. On the floors I work, we typically infuse blood over 3-4 hours. It never occurred to me to run it faster but now I can't help but think, if the patient could tolerate it, it would be so much easier to run it faster. Which leads me to ask: how fast do you normally infuse a unit of blood and how well do your patients tolerate it?