Question about weight-based drips

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Specializes in medical, telemetry, IMC.

i was floated to icu a few days ago and i had a chf pt., who was on a dopamine and a dobutamine drip.

the drips stayed at a certain rate, which was set by the cardiologist (dopamine at 2mcg/kg/min and dobutamine at 5mcg/kg/min).

do drips like that get adjusted daily according to the pt's weight for that day? or do the drips stay at the same rate according to the admit weight?

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Specializes in Emergency.

Where I work, they stay the same according to the admit weight. The pharmacy looks at the patients weights daily, and if there is a significant weight loss, they may adjust it, but they do that not us. we do have drips that are titrated, but there are other criteria for titration, not weight.

Hope that answers your question!

Amy

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Specializes in Cardiac.

I had this come up recently too. I was told they stay according to admit wt also.

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Dobutamine and Dopamine would not change based on daily weights. They could possibly be titrated based on other vital signs or symptoms, for example.. symptomatic low blood pressure (titrate up) or tachycardia (titrate dopamine down) changing swan-ganz catheter numbers could also be used in the decision making process. Good question though, hope that helps.

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Specializes in medical, telemetry, IMC.

thanks for all the answers; exactly what i was looking for! :)

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