Pharmacy calculation help

Nurses General Nursing

Published

HI EVERYONE, I'M STUCK ON THIS PHARMACY QUESTION AND I'M PRETTY SURE ITS SIMPLE BUT THERE IS SOMETHING IM MISSING HERES THE QUESTION:

The patient is to receive Ancef 1 gram every 6 hours in 100 ml of NS to run over 30 minute. Using microdrip tubing (60 gtts/ml), what is the rate of the IV ?

NOW I MIGHT BE WRONG OR SKIPPING SOMETHING BUT I'VE BEEN USING THE EQUATION

VOLUME TO BE INFUSED * DROP FACTOR (gtt/ml) = IV FLOW RATE (gtt/min)

TIME (MIN)

PLEASE CAN SOMEONE HELP ME WITH THIS ?

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Specializes in Oncology.

The rate of an IV is what you would program a pump to run at, in ml's per hour. The question is throwing you off not because it doesn't have all of the information, but because it has too much information. Read it again and see if you can figure out how many ml's per hour it would be given at.

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Specializes in NICU.

Work the problem and show what you think the answer is, then we will help guide you to the answer.

HINT: not all of the information is needed to solve the problem.

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OK THIS IS WHAT I DID:

100ml * 60 gtt/ml

30 min

100*60 = 6000

6000 = 200

30

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

that's it. Well done

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Specializes in Oncology.

Yep, that's it. In the future, another way to think of it is that if you're giving 100 ml in 30 minutes, there's two sets of 30 mins in 1 hour, so 100 x 2= 200 ml/hr.

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thank you, i thought i was doing something wrong idk why i just had to take a few mins a stop doing questions

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From what I remember(please correct me if wrong) 60gtt tubing is mini-tubing and you always set the machine for the amount that you want to go in over the hour?? Because this one is to infuse for 30 minutes it would have been set for twice the amount in the bag??

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