iv antibiotics and maintaining line

Nurses Medications

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Hello all!

I work in LTC and often hang IV antibiotics. I've been having a problem lately which is letting the IV line run dry (or partially dry) after the dose is over. For example, we'll do the IV q 4 hours or q 8 hours and the tubing is supposed to last 24 hours. Well if I hang new tubing (my shift hangs all new tubing) it runs dry after my dose, and I don't like leaving others to have to use old tubing with a lot of bubbles for the next day.

I understand in hospitals this probably doesn't happen because I assume most antibiotics are running with IV fluids, but we don't have that luxury at my facility. Any advice? Thanks!

Another thought. Have you recently switched to a different brand of tubing? My thought is maybe the tubing is slightly different or defective and therefore causing the pumps to incorrectly calculate the volume infused?

Hope I'm not being annoying. I love a good problem to solve. I think this is my last idea though. Ha, ha!

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Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.

decrease the VTBI by about 10 mls this should help

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Same tubing! Thank you for trying to help.

Esme, I will try to decrease VTBI more next time! Thanks!

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