calIV and Drug Calculations for Busy Paramedics By Kent R. Spitler, MSEd, RN, NREMT-P EMS Educator Charlotte, North Carolina Introduction Medication calculations can cause frustration for EMS providers. Math and pharmacology can make it difficult to succeed on course exams, in the clinical setting, and in the field. There is a solution to make medication calculations easier. The answer to this problem is simple by showing students how to perform calculations using a simple process. While there are plenty of good drug and solution textbooks, study guides, and presentations available showing the methods of medication calculations, It seems that it much of it causes mathematical confusion often called “math mental blocks” for many EMS …show more content…
Let’s look at the other methods and see if it makes sense. Think about the 60 drop per milliliter set (60 gtts/ml.) Now think about the answer you want which drops per minute. A protocol or medical control will give you fluid amounts to administer most 2 commonly in ml/hr. You already have the amount and the time to be infused. All you do now is choose the appropriate drip set, using a simple formula you can come up with a quick answer: Amount of Solution (in ml) X drip set (gtts/ml) = x drops/min (gtts/min) Looking at an example, your medical control states you need to establish an IV on a cardiac patient complaining of chest pressure at a rate of 80 ml/hr using a 500 ml bag of Normal Saline solution. The drip set you choose is a 60 gtts/ml minidrip set. The formula is as follows: Divide 60 into 4800 80 ml (amount) X 60 gtts/ml (drip set) 60 (divided my time in minutes – over 1 hour) = 4800 60 = 80 gtts/min When calculating IV drip rates remember that you can reduce to the lowest common denominator by dividing the same number into both the numerator and the denominator to make your calculations much easier. All samples shown from now on demonstrate this throughout. Simply remember that the numbers are consistent with the 60 minute clock and you will catch on rather quickly. The sample problems will show you by dividing the same number into the drip set and the time. As you see the answer is
So any time you use a 15 gtts/ml drip set just divide the amount of solution per hour by 4. 80 6 = 20 gtts/min The 20 gtts/ml drip set is calculated the same way except you divide by 3 since there are three 20 minute periods in one hour. 20 goes into 20 once and 20 goes into 60 three times. Observe the example below: 80 ml (amount) X 20 gtts/ml (drip set) 60 (divided my time in minutes – over 1 hour) = The answer is 26.6 or rounded off to 27 gtts/minute. This means all you need to do is divide the amount of solution per hour by 3 to get the gtts/min. Summary • Drip sets used in medicine are based on the 60 minute clock for timing and calculations. All you need to do is divide the amount to be infused each hour by how many time periods the drip set has in one hour which is based on the clock. The drip sets include the minidrip set, 60 gtts/ml, and three regular drip sets which include the 10 gtts/ml set, 15 gtt/ml set, and the 20 gtts/ml set. There is one (1) 60 minute period in one hour, six (6) 10 minute periods in one hour, four (4) 15 minute periods in one hour, and three (3) 20 minute periods in one hour. When reducing fractions to allow easier calculations
4. Exposure 3 repeat step 3 w/o including the saline bags (used as a control).
In surgery it is most often used in the dry, powder form and is dusted onto oozing surfaces as needed. For reconstituted thrombin, the recommended dosage is 1,000 to 2,000 International Units per milliliter (King, FDA, 2016). Vials come in total volumes of 5,000 units with a 5 mL diluent and 20,000 units with a 20 mL diluent (Medscape, thrombin).
Three (3) drops, three (3) times a day for three (3) days starting the day before the study.
• Serially dilute the 4 mg/ml solution with buffer A to make working solutions of 400 µg/ml and 40 µg/ml.
Using the graduated cylinder, measure 20mLs of the stock sucrose solution and 180mL of water to create a 3% sucrose solution and place it into the 250mL beaker (beaker #2). Place bags #1‐3 (red, blue, yellow) into beaker 2 and bag #4 (green) into beaker 1. Allow the bags to sit for one hour. After allowing the bags to sit for one hour, remove them from the beakers carefully open the bags, noting that often times the tops may need to be cut as they tend to dry out. Measure the solution volumes of each dialysis bag using the empty 250 ml beaker.
Calculate: How long does it take for the blood concentration to go from the maximum recommended value to the minimum recommended value? It takes about 4 hours
3. Use a sterile pipette to transfer 0.1 ml of each dilution on to a MacConkey agar plate.
The emergency department physician inserts a central venous catheter via the subclavian vein and prescribes Lactated Ringer's solution at 1,000 ml/hr via infusion pump.
This article uses a number of different sciences to solve the issue of inaccurate drug dosage. The first is biomedical engineering which is where the concepts of engineering are applied to the creation of something used in a medical setting. In this study the biomedical engineering is scene within the use of the microfluidic chip because it was designed and adapted for medical research. Microfluidic chips have been around for a couple decades and are used for many different purposes but this technology was adapted by the scientist Ryan Oliver to satisfy the needs of the study. He designed and created a microchip that was able to replicate the biological environment found within the human kidneys using biomedical engineering. The scientist had
5. You administer furosemide (Lasix) 80mg IVP. Identify three parameters you would use to monitor the effectiveness of this medication.
water during the equilibration period of 10 minutes. Vials 1,2, and 3 should be in the bath containing water at
1. Cut four 6-inch pieces of dialysis tubing and soak in a coffee cup filled with tap water for 2 hours prior to your start
The correct syringe is used to place 10 cm3 of the first glucose solution into the boiling tube.
Just as important as conversions, ratios and proportions also play a huge role in the medical field. Nurses use ratios and proportions when giving medication based on their patient’s weight and height. A doctor may give the order 25 mcg/kg/min. If a patient weighs 114 pounds, how many milligrams of medication should he/she be given per hour? To figure this, his/her nurse would begin by changing micrograms into milligrams. If one microgram is equal to 0.001 milligrams, the nurse can find the amount of milligrams in twenty-five micrograms by setting up a