Need help with nursing math question

What do you have so far?

You have 20 units in 1,000 cc. Your order is in milliunits. How do you convert units to milliunits?

I think there are 20,000mu in a 20 units

Right. So you know you have 20,000 mu/1,000 mL. So what is your concentration?

the Iv was infusing at 125ml/hr

I honestly have no idea how to solve this

the Iv was infusing at 125ml/hr

That would be the maintenance fluid I imagine, because that is much too high a rate to infuse the ordered dose of pitocin at.

Have you taken a course that involves drug calculations?

You know that you have 20,000 milliunits/1,000 mL. You need to divide to figure out your concentration in milliunits/mL. Once you figure that out, you know that your order is for 2 milliunits/min. How many milliunits will you infuse in an hour? How many mL is that?

Hi Hannah,

This is actually a trickier medication calculation question than normal.

Check out this video to learn how to do it:

Try this:

Amount ordered divided by Amount Available (in the same mU) times quantity (how many ml of fluid you have) times 60. This will give you ml/hr.

(2/20,000) * 1000 * 60 = ? ml/hr

Thank you Kuriin!!!! This short video cleared it all up for me. TY TY TY!!!

1000 mL x 1U x 2mu x 60 min _{= 6 ml /hr}

20U 1,000mu 1 min 1hr

Thank you Kuriin!!!! This short video cleared it all up for me. TY TY TY!!!

1000 mL x 1U x 2mu x 60 min _{= 6 ml /hr}

20U 1,000mu 1 min 1hr

Nurse collects a bag of D5LR for the pitocin which is available in 20 units in 1000 cc d5lr. The order from the HCP is oxytocin 2mu/min to augument labor.Calculate the following drip rate for pitocin.

Another way of looking at it is as there are 20,000 mU in 1000mL D5LR. The order is 2mU/min.

If we use the formula:

mcg/min*60 (for hour) mcg in solution

_______ = ________

mL/hr total solution

We can plug everything in:

2*60 20,000mU in the solution

_________ = ____________

x (we are looking for the mL/hr) 1000mL

2*60 = 120. Cross multiply with 1000mL and you get 120,000. Divide by 20,000 and you will get x (6).

Hopefully no one gets confused with this type of problem again.