Syringe Pump or Buretrol?

[QTBabyNurse]

when administering iv meds to newborns, does your hospital use a syringe pump or do you add your meds through a buretrol.....what are the pros and cons of each?

[*PICURN*]

Maintenance IVF go through the buretrol. Any high risk or incompatible meds are put on a syringe pump (as well as all gtts). If the maintenance IVF is running at over 25cc/hr and the med you want to give is compatible, we drop it into the buretrol and adjust the rate to get the med in over a certain amt of time.

The good thing about dropping meds into the buretrol vs. a syringe pump is the volume issue. If you have a kid who you don't want to fluid overload, and your med has to be mixed w/50 cc of fluid, instead of adding another 50cc and giving it over the syringe pump, you can mix it in the buretrol and avoid giving them unneccessary fluid.

[KRVRN, BSN, RN]

We don't use buretrols at all. We used to, but found them to be a big waste since all our maintenance IVFs are via IV pump and all other meds, drips and feedings are via syringe pumps.

[camay1221_RN]

buretol on the IV pump for fluids, syringe pump for meds here

Same protocol for our unit.

[dawngloves, BSN, RN]

Maintenance IVF go through the buretrol. Any high risk or incompatible meds are put on a syringe pump (as well as all gtts). If the maintenance IVF is running at over 25cc/hr and the med you want to give is compatible, we drop it into the buretrol and adjust the rate to get the med in over a certain amt of time.

The good thing about dropping meds into the buretrol vs. a syringe pump is the volume issue. If you have a kid who you don't want to fluid overload, and your med has to be mixed w/50 cc of fluid, instead of adding another 50cc and giving it over the syringe pump, you can mix it in the buretrol and avoid giving them unneccessary fluid.

I almost fell over when I read you have fluids going at over 25ml/hr. Then I read your name and it makes sense. :chuckle

[dawngloves, BSN, RN]

We don't use buretrols at all. We used to, but found them to be a big waste since all our maintenance IVFs are via IV pump and all other meds, drips and feedings are via syringe pumps.

Sorry to highjack again, but....

our unit could save some money by getting rid of ours. We used to use them if a baby needed something added to his flluids, like Ca or K. But our phamacy has gotten much faster at making us a new bag of fluids. I can't remember when I did that last.

[Gompers, BSN, RN]

We give our IV meds either slow push (narcotics, ampicillin, steroids, etc.) or on a syringe pump with the microbore tubing plugged into the closest IV port to the baby. The only time I've put a med into the buretrol was when I floated to PICU and had a fresh post-trach kiddo on IV antibiotics. For babies with slow IV rates, there was a good point further up the thread about how it would take a long time for the med to reach the baby, plus we don't like to mess with our maintenance IV rates too much. Our buretrol IV tubing has 27ml of space, while the microbore we use with syringe pumps has 0.3ml.

We do run our maintenance IV fluids, lipids, TKO heparinized saline, and pressors through buretrols, but they're all going through IV pumps as well. Narcotic drips, insulin, blood products, and prostaglandins we put on a syringe pump.