Question

The physician orders for 1 liter of IV fluid to be given over 6 hours. The available tubing set delivers 15 gtts/mL. After your calculation, the set should be caLiBrated to deliver _______ gtts/min. (round to the nearest whole number)

Answer 1

To administer 1 liter of IV fluid over 6 hours using tubing that delivers 15 gtts/mL, the IV set should be calibrated to deliver 42 gtts/min after rounding to the nearest whole number.

Step-by-step explanation:

The physician orders 1 liter of IV fluid to be given over 6 hours. Using a tubing set that delivers 15 gtts/mL, we can calculate the necessary flow rate in gtts/min. To calculate, convert the liter to milliliters (since there are 1000 mL in a liter, that's 1000 mL). Next, divide the total volume by the number of hours to find the ml/hour rate, which is 1000 mL divided by 6 hours, resulting in approximately 166.67 mL/hour. Then, to get the flow rate in minutes, divide this figure by 60 (the number of minutes in an hour) to yield about 2.78 mL/min. Multiply the flow rate by the drops per mL of the IV set to get the flow rate in gtts/min: 2.78 mL/min * 15 gtts/mL equals approximately 41.7 gtts/min. Therefore, after rounding to the nearest whole number, the IV set should be calibrated to deliver 42 gtts/min.