What is "KVO" on your unit?

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Specializes in High Risk In Patient OB/GYN.

Here (antepartum) it's 30cc/hr.

A M/S friend of mine said hers is 50cc/hr.

What is it on your unit?

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Specializes in Adult ER.

on mine is 25cc per hr. Have heard that anything less is not enough to actually keep the vein open.

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Specializes in Med-surg; OB/Well baby; pulmonology; RTS.

It is 20-40 cc/hr here.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho.

Normally if the nurse decides it is approx 30ml/hr. I have however seen a dr write for 10 with a pca, which made no sense to me at all.

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Specializes in Nurse Scientist-Research.

It so changes from unit to unit. I worked a Stepdown unit with many renal/heart patients and we had a choice of running ours either 10cc/hr or 20cc/hr. I was shocked to find when I worked a surgical floor that their KVO rate was 50cc/hr (that would have overloaded most of my Stepdown patients).

We didn't know on our Stepdown floor that you can't keep a vein open with less than 25cc/hr and we used to run Nitro drips at 3cc/hr, never lost a site due to clotting. We also ran a lot of double/quad strength dobutrex drips that ran less than 10cc/hr, they lasted as well as any other IV's on those poor old veins.

Now that I work NICU we don't have any such thing as KVO. We run IV's as low as 1cc/hr. But I have seen IV's clot off in this environment. But consider that many neonates have ungodly high hematocrits (50-65%) and pretty much all our peripheral IV's are 24 gauges.

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Specializes in OB, M/S, HH, Medical Imaging RN.

20-50cc/hr, nurses discretion.

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For us it's 10-20 ml/hr. Some people will set it at 50, but considering I've seen doctors write orders for fluids @ 50, I feel like keeping it lower is probably a better idea...after all, if the docs wanted them getting 50, they'd write for it. I usually go with 20. But I don't think veins clot off at 10, or else how do you account for all the titrated drips running in just fine (ie PCA without continuous, insulin drip, morphine drip, etc.)?

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Specializes in Inpatient Acute Rehab.

10 cc/hr

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where i work, it's 42ml/hr, or a 24hrly rate, but sometimes if they have an iv pump we'll drop it to 21ml/hr, or, if they have a PICC or CVC, we'll drop it to 10ml/hr

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15cc/hr

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25cc an hour

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Specializes in Clinical Infusion Educator.

In reality,

Unless your institution has a written policy of what KVO is for that facility,

Writting an order for KVO can be problematic. KVO can be anything from 0.2cc/hr to 50cc/hr. So, when accepting an order from your MD, and if your facility does not spell out what KVO means, pinpoint your MD to a specific rate. "Hey doc, can that be 10cc/hr, 20cc/hr etc. It should NOT be left up to the nurses.

Diane

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