Need help with nursing math question

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Oct 4, 2013

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?

hannahmarie44 · Oct 4, 2013

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

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Oct 4, 2013

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

hannahmarie44 · Oct 4, 2013

the Iv was infusing at 125ml/hr

hannahmarie44 · Oct 4, 2013

I honestly have no idea how to solve this

KelRN215, BSN, RN · Oct 4, 2013

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?

Kuriin, BSN, RN · Oct 4, 2013

Hi Hannah,

This is actually a trickier medication calculation question than normal.

Check out this video to learn how to do it:

Mama_Cashew, ASN, RN · Oct 6, 2013

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

Nafartiti01 · Nov 20, 2015

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

Nafartiti01 · Nov 20, 2015

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

Kuriin, BSN, RN · Dec 14, 2015

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.