Med calc question

[semester1kid]

Here a question I have in regards to how to calculate a drop rate related question - I did come up with the correct answer as was posted on our blackboard. But the way I went through it felt choppy and I was wondering if there was an easier way.

Here's what was given:

800 ml to be infused at a rate of 12 gtt/min. 10gtt=1 ml. Calculate the time it would take to infuse.

Basically, first thing I did was figured out that there were 8000 drops. Then I divided that by the 12 drops, which gave me 666.67. I then further divided by 60 to get the time in terms of hours, which came to 11.11 hours, which = 11 hours 7 minutes.

Is this the best way to do this calculation?

[TheSquire, DNP, APRN, NP]

More or less - if you set up all your conversions in one go, as in dimensional analysis, you can simply the process a bit by removing common factors (twos, threes, fives, and multiples of ten are what usually drop out well). Other than that, there's not much else you need to do that calculation.

[dudette10, MSN, RN]

I hate, hate dimensional analysis, but if you set it up, you're concerned about leaving hours as the only label value as the numerator value. Don't make the mistake of putting it as the denominator value.

You don't worry about the numbers until you're ready to do the math, but you have to make sure that they are in the correct place with the correct label. With dimensional analysis, you often have to make ratios out of whole numbers (i.e. the 800 ml should be 800 ml/1) and add other ratios that equal 1 (i.e. adding 1 hr/60 min). You also may have to invert some of the ratios already given in the problem.

With the information I've given, try setting up the equation and posting it.