IV I&O Help

[RescueNinja2013]

Hello fellow nurses, I am a new nurse, barely began my first nursing job last month. and today I had a patient that had half a bag of 0.9 NS infusing at 75 mL/hr when I had arrived on the unit at 0700. I changed his very empty bag (which I feel crappy bout) at 1300 hours. When it was end of shift at 1500 hours, about 100 mL had already infused (infusion set with dial-a-flow). How was I supposed to calculate his I&O? Knowing that half a bag is 500 mL, I just added that to the 100 that already infused. But what is the correct formula/way to calculate IV I&O? How do I calculate when an infusion would be completed? I'm trying to be confident, but I guess I'm in the "shock" phase of being a new nurse. Please refrain from negative comments, I don't need my ego or self-confidence to go any lower at this point. I know that I'll come around, I'm hoping it's sooner than later. Thanks.

[SwansonRN]

You were right, the patient got 600cc. An easy way to find out when you'll need to change the bag is take the volume (mL) and divide by the rate (mL/hr).

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

Hello fellow nurses, I am a new nurse, barely began my first nursing job last month. and today I had a patient that had half a bag of 0.9 NS infusing at 75 mL/hr when I had arrived on the unit at 0700. I changed his very empty bag (which I feel crappy bout) at 1300 hours. When it was end of shift at 1500 hours, about 100 mL had already infused (infusion set with dial-a-flow). How was I supposed to calculate his I&O? Knowing that half a bag is 500 mL, I just added that to the 100 that already infused. But what is the correct formula/way to calculate IV I&O? How do I calculate when an infusion would be completed? I'm trying to be confident, but I guess I'm in the "shock" phase of being a new nurse. Please refrain from negative comments, I don't need my ego or self-confidence to go any lower at this point. I know that I'll come around, I'm hoping it's sooner than later. Thanks.

You document what has infused. without a pump these measurements are approximate. You did it right

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

Before we had pumps we put lengths of tape on the sides of the bags and marked them for hourly rate. If you hang it at noon and have a rate of 75 cc/hour you would put a magic marker line @ about 925cc and mark it "1pm", @850cc 2pm, @775cc 3pm, @700cc 4pm, @625cc 5pm, @550cc 6pm, ...and so forth, down to the bottom. It's not precise but it gives you (and anyone else who follows you) a much better sense of whether it's running more or less on time. You can do that too. There is some thought that putting magic marker directly on an IV bag will contaminate the fluid; as far as I know it's never been adequately proven, but it's easy to stick a piece of tape on it. There are cc markers on the bag for your guidance.

Calculate the I&O just as you think: 75cc/hr x 6 hours = 450cc, for example. Add the amounts for any piggyback med riders, boluses, etc. Your goal is to communicate how many fluids you put into his vein on your watch.