Ace Your IV Drip Rate Calculations in 6 EASY STEPS

In this video, I'm going to show you how to ace your IV drip rate dose calc problems in six easy steps. I'm going to break it down super simple so you can pass your exam and calculate them right at clinical. Make sure to stick around until the end of the video because I'm going to give you my best tip to help you solve these problems correctly and learn how to critically think at the same time. Trust me, do not miss this one. So hit the subscribe button and click on the notification bell and let's dive in. There are some key differences when calculating IV drip rates that you need to know or you will get them wrong. The first one you need to know about is called a drop factor. This is the number of drops that the IV tubing will give you per 1ml of solution or medication. Lucky for us, this is standardized and depends on the type of IV tubing that you use. So you don't actually need to figure this number out, they will just give it to you in your practice problem and it will also be printed on your IV tubing bag. So all you need to do at clinical is take a look at the type of tubing that you're using and it will tell you the drop factor. There are two types of drop factors that you need to know. Macro drip and microdrip. Now a macro drip tubing can give between 10 to 20 drops per milliliter. You'll see this written as GTTS ML. You'll see 10, 15 or 20 drops per milliliter with Macrodrip tubing. Now, microdrip tubing is different though. It's always 60 drops per milliliter. So this is the second key difference that you'll need to be aware of. If the question states that you'll be using micro drip tubing, you should automatically know that that means it's 60 drops per milliliter. Don't worry, we'll go through several practice problems so this will all make sense to you in a minute. For now, just know that microdrip tubing is always referring to 60 drops per milliliter. Now the third key difference that I want to mention is that from my experience, it can be more difficult to pick through the unnecessary information with IV dose calc problems and pick out the important info that you need to solve the problem. Now we've all had that experience of sitting in front of our exam just staring at the question because we don't know what it's asking for, right? So I'm going to give you A quick tip to help you with this here in a minute as we walk through our practice problems. So let's dive into our first practice problem. The doctor has ordered 2 grams of magnesium sulfate in 100 milliliters to infuse over four hours. You're using micro drip tubing for this infusion. How many drops per minute will infuse? So let's walk through this simple step by step process for getting dosage calculation problems right every time. Now, the first step is to figure out what you need. What is the question actually asking you for? You have to figure this out first or else you might set up the whole thing wrong and get a totally different answer than you should have. It's like you're going to a friend's house, but you don't know the address. You need to know where you're going first or you'll just end up at the wrong house. So step number one is to figure out what the question is really asking you for. And here we're looking for drops per minute. So let's write that on the right hand side of the paper. Now step number two is to figure out what the doctor has ordered. What's the original order say in this example, the doctor ordered 2 grams of magnesium sulfate and 100 milliliters of normal saline to run over four hours. That's a lot of info there. And remember that trick I was going to tell you about? Well, this is it. It's common in these IV dosage calc problems for, for the question to give you more information than you need. And one common piece of info that they give you is the amount of milligrams, grams or micrograms of medication that will be diluted inside the IV bag. This is information that you most likely don't need to know it to solve your drip rate problems. We're only interested in the amount of liquid that the patient is getting, whether it's fluid, blood products or a medication. So here in our example, to figure out the drip rate, we don't need to know how many grams of medication we will be in the bag. We just need to know the amount of fluid that's in the bag. So that's a pro tip for you to help you out if you see a dose calc problem that's asking for a drip rate, but they give you the weight of a medication, like the grams or the milligrams. Just remember that you most likely don't need to know that information, so don't let it distract you. So let's write 100ml to run over 4 hours on the left hand side of our paper. That's all the info we need to know for us to be able to solve this problem. Problem. Now step number three is to figure out what the conversion factors are that you need to use. Now, remember how I said that microdript tubing is always 60 drops per milliliter? Well, here's where you would want to use that information. The question just tells us that it's micro drip tubing, but it doesn't tell us how many drops per milliliter. So you just need to memorize that. Microdrip tubing is 60 drops per mil. So that conversion needs to go next 60 gtts over 1 milliliter. And we know that we need to to get that drops per minute. So what we need to end up with. So right now we're able to cross off milliliters because those cancel out. But right now we still have to convert hours into minutes. And there's a super easy way to do that by writing one hour over 60 minutes, because one hour equals 60 minutes. So now hours cross each other out and we're left with drops on the top, minutes on the bottom, which is exactly what we need. So we know we've set this up correctly because the units that are supposed to cancel each other out, they do. And now we're left with the correct ones, drops per minute. So now step number four is to solve this problem. And this is super easy. Using this dimensional analysis method. All you need to do is multiply across the top, multiply across the bottom, divide those two numbers. So here we'll multiply 100 times 60 times 1, which gives us 6,000. And then multiply the bottom numbers 4 times 1 times 60, which gives us 240. And now all we need to do is divide 6,000 by 240, which gives us 25. So the answer is 25 drops per minute. But we can't forget the next steps. Step five is to round and write the answer appropriately. Since this is a whole number, we don't need to round it up or down. It just stays exactly how it is, 25. But here's the running rules you'll use when solving other drip rate problems. If it's less than 0.5, round down. If it's 0.5 or greater, round up. So if our example has come out to 24.6, we would have rounded up to 25. And if it had come out to 24.4, we would have rounded down to 24. So that's the rounding rule for dirt. If it's less than 0.5, round down if it's 0.5 or greater roundup. And step number six is to always check your answer. I always recommend that you check your work because we all make mistakes sometimes. But with these medication problems and dose calc problems, the patient's life really depends on this. So it's important that it's correct. So take another moment and work the problem again just to double check your work. It will give you a lot of peace of mind knowing that it's 100% correct. So now let's head on over to my computer and work some more practice problems to help you really get comfortable with all this. This one says the doctor has ordered one liter of normal saline to infuse over eight hours. The IV tubing is 20 GTDs. That's drops per milliliter. How many drops per minute will be infused? Or step one is what do we need? What do we need to end up with? Always like to do that first or we'll get the wrong answer. We might be solving for the wrong thing. So you always want to make sure that you know you need. And here it's asking for GTTs over one minute. Drops per minute. That's what it says, drops per minute. So then step two is to figure out what the order is. What was the original order? The doctor ordered one liter of normal saline to infuse over eight hours. So we'll put one literally over eight hours. All right, and then step number three is conversions. What are the conversions that we need to use in order to get from here to there? We need drops per minute, but right now we have liters in hours. So the question does give us how many drops per milliliter the IV tubing is going to giving us because we need to convert now liters to drops and hours to minutes. So using this IV tubing here will be our first step. So 20g tts, because that's exactly what we need to end up with over here. So this is going to be at the top per 1ml. Now here's where things kind of get fancy. Because we have liters here and milliliters here, these need to cross off. We need to cross off liters and milliliters. But the way that we can do that is to know that there are 1,000 milliliters in one liter. And I guess I will write this all out. So now liters is going to cross off because we need those to Cross off. And now milliliters is going to cross off. So that's beautiful. Now we're left with drops, gtts, which is exactly what we need to end up with. But now we're still left with hours over here. So how do we convert hours, minutes? That is pretty easy once you see it done once, because in one hour, there are 60 minutes. See how that works? So now hours is going to cross off because one's on the top, one's on the bottom. Now we're left with exactly what we need, gtts and minutes, which is beautiful. So now our fourth step is to just solve the problem. And to do that, we're going to multiply straight across. Multiply straight across. And then we're going to divide those two numbers. So multiplying 1 by 20 by 1000 gives us 20,000. And then multiplying 8 by 1 by 1 by 60 gives us 480. And now we're going to divide those two numbers. 20,000 divided by 480 gives us 41. And now step number five is to use our rounding rules and write the answer appropriately. Now, like we said earlier, our rounding rules for anything IV drop rates like this is, if it's a 5 or above, we're going to round up. If it's 4 or below, we're going to round down. So because 6 is above 5, then we are going to actually round this up to 42. So this is going to be 42 GTTS per minute. And that is our final answer. All right, now, the next question here says the patient has orders for 500mg of medication A to be diluted in 250ml of normal saline and infused over four hours. You'll be using microdrip tubing. How many drops per minute will the patient receive? Now, this question is going to take a little bit of critical thinking on our part to solve. Remember how I said before that sometimes these questions will give you information that you do not need to know or use as you're solving these problems. And it's doing that exact thing right here. So for these IV problems, the only thing we're interested in is the milliliters of normal saline. We don't really need to know how many milligrams of the medication is diluted in that normal saline in order to get the drops per minute, because we're only really interested in in the fluid volume, how much actual liquid is in that bag that we're going to infuse. So let's walk through this step Number one, what do we need now? We need drops gtts per minute. We need to figure out how many drops per minute drops per minute the patient will receive. Now, what does the order say? 500mg of medication A diluted in 250mls of normal saline to be infused over four hours. So like I said, we really don't need to know. 500 milligrams of medication A. We don't really care about that right now. We only care about the volume of that bag. So that's 250mls over four hours. Now, what are our conversions? This is step number three. What are the conversion factors that we need to use? We need to get from milliliters to. To drops and four hours to minutes. So hours to minutes. So our conversion factors, somehow we need to get milliliters to gtts. And this is telling us that we have microdrip tubing. And if you remember from previous problems that we solved, Microdrip tubing is 60 gtts per milliliter. That is the standard for that. Anytime you see micro drip tubing, it means that it is 60 drops per per mil. So that is. That is easy peasy. You don't really need to do any math for that. Just 60 drops per mil. So right now this is beautiful because this crosses off milliliters is perfect. Send. We're left with here GTD as on the top drops, which is exactly what we need. Now all we have to do is convert hours to minutes. And the easiest way to do that, just one hour, is 60 minutes. One hour equals 60 minutes. So now we are going to move on to the next step and solve the problem. So we have to multiply 250 by 60 by 1. So we multiply across the top, which gives us 15,000. Then we're going to multiply across the bottom. We're going to multiply 4 by 1. This should technically be 1 mil by 60, which gives us 2. So then we're going to divide 15,000 divided by 240 gives us 62.5. Now 62.5. Now we are not going to sit there and watch and calculate out 62.5 drops as half a drop is coming through that drip chamber. We're not going to do that. So we need to round this to a whole number. We are only going to count whole drops coming out of that drip chamber or it will take us forever to figure this out. When you're setting your IV drip rates actually at Clinical Owner Skills Lab. So 62.5 needs to round up to 63 because it's five or over rounds up. If it's four or below, it would round down, but this is five, so we're going to round it to 65. Three drops per minute. See how that works? Beautiful. All right, now let's solve the next problem. The patient will receive 1200 mils of Ringer's lactate solution to run over 10 hours. The IV tubing you'll use says macro drip at 10 drops per mil, gtts per mil. How many drops per minute will be infused. So this is awesome. All we need to do is walk through the steps like always. Figure out what we need to end up with. Always start there. And we need drops per minute. Now what does the order say? Step number two, what is the order? The order is 1200 mils of Ringer's lactate to run over 10 hours. 1200 mils to run over 10 hours. Easy peasy. Now, the IV tubing that you'll use has Macrodrip at 10 drops per mil. So that's wonderful. This is super nice because it's 10 GTTS, which gives us drops, which is exactly what we need. And then it's already in MLS over 1 mil. So we actually don't need to do any other conversions because these just cross off. Now we have our drops here up at the top, but we still need minutes. We have hours over here. So how do we convert hours to minutes? Well, one hour over 60 minutes, because one hour equals 60 minutes. So now we get to solve the problem. Just multiply straight across the top. 1200 times 10 gives us 12,000, and then 10 by 1 by 60 is 600. So then we just divide 12,000 divided by 600 is 20 drops, GTTS per minute. And this one's beautiful because we don't have to round. It is just 20 drops per minute. Now here's the biggest tip I have for you for figuring out drip rate dose calc problems. But before we do that, I want to give a shout out to our comment of the week from Monica, who left a comment on one of our videos. And Monica said, accidentally stumbled upon your blog through Pinterest and I just subscribed to your channel. I am super nervous about starting my junior year of nursing school with beginning med surg, pharmacology and health prevention. But I am super glad that I found your blog and YouTube channel. I cannot wait until I start putting your tips into action. Thank you so much, Monica, for your thoughtful comment. You are going to rock your junior year of nursing school now, friend. I've given you a ton of nursing school tips here on this channel, but here's the biggest tip that I have for you when it comes to passing your Dose Calc exam. Practice Practice Practice. Go online, find practice questions. There are a gazillion of them out there. And if you're a nursing SOS member, we have a whole Dose Calc workbook for you with a bunch of practice questions for you to work through. So be sure to check that out if you're a member. But not only that, I really recommend that you create your own practice questions. Getting into the mindset of how your instructors write the exam will really help you deepen your critical thinking skills. It's one thing to be able to answer the question now, it's a whole other thing to be able to write your own questions and solve for them. So get with your best nursing school buddy, help each other out and write practice dosage calculation problems. You will get so much better at solving them. It will help you understand them so much more and you'll be a lot more confident for your exam. In the next video, I'm going to break down the nursing process for you and give you all of the juicy tips and tricks for how to master it. Now click on one of these videos over here to keep rocking nursing school and go become the nurse that God created only you to be and I'll see you in the next video.