Rounding IV drip calculations

[myknucklehurts]

I am a second semester student. We are working on Heparin calculations and IV drip calculations. I thought I remember being told in a lecture that you can never round medications up, but now I can't find it anywhere in my notes and some of the online practice quizzes I've been taking allow it.

Please tell me what the rule is for rounding medication calculations.

Thanks in advance.

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

How can you measure 1.45 ml with a 3 ml syringe? It has 0.1 ml markings not 0.01ml markings!

This thread is 4 years old but you can draw up half way between 1.4 and 1.5 mL and that's 1.45 mL. We certainly did that every day when I worked in the hospital (pediatrics).

[Lewis35]

Ok so what if you have 1.44 ml? We were taught greater than 1 ml round to tenths place and less than 1ml round to the hundredths position. And if the syringe doesn't have 0.01 ml increments how certain are you that it's accurate?

[KelRN215, BSN, RN]

Ok so what if you have 1.44 ml? We were taught greater than 1 ml round to tenths place and less than 1ml round to the hundredths position. And if the syringe doesn't have 0.01 ml increments how certain are you that it's accurate?

If the calculated dose is 1.44 mL, measuring slightly less than halfway between 1.4 mL and 1.5 mL is closer to the calculated dose than if you round down to 1.4 mL. And if you're off by 0.01 mL, that's less than a 1% discrepancy. IV pumps aren't even that accurate- the 2 we used at my last job (that kids when home on cardiac drugs like milrinone on) have published accuracy of +/- 6%. Do whatever the school tells you to for rounding on tests. I'm talking about the real world.