dittydo

I have never thought of levo having a max rate. At my current facility, they were using 30mcg/min as the max. A yr ago, our new groupof intensivists became frustrated realizing that the staff were saying that the "levo is maxed out" based on the 30mcg/min. So we changed it to mcg/kg/min. It took a bit of education because the dosages are so different. The mcg/KG/min dose range is 0.03-3 mcg/kg/min. For a 75 kg pt, 3 mcg/kg/min runs at 850ml/hr. Inadvertently misplacing a decimal pt can make huge change in the dose. But because it's levo it will be noticed immediately.

I have always used levophed in a mcg/min calc. Recently our MD's are requesting we use mcg/kg/min. Does anyone else used this calculation?