Determining i.v. infusion rates for critical care drugs using a microcomputer

Area of Science:

• Clinical Pharmacy Informatics
• Critical Care Medicine

Background:

• Calculating intravenous (IV) infusion rates for critical care drugs is often complex, time-consuming, and prone to errors.
• Accurate and efficient drug administration is paramount in critical care settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a user-friendly microcomputer program to assist healthcare professionals in calculating IV infusion rates for critical care drugs.
• To enhance the accuracy and efficiency of drug preparation and administration.
• To provide readily accessible drug information for safe medication practices.

Main Methods:

• A microcomputer program was developed using the BASIC programming language.
• The program is menu-driven, requiring single-keystroke commands for ease of use.
• Functionalities include generating patient- and drug-specific IV infusion rate charts and performing dose-to-rate/rate-to-dose calculations.

Main Results:

• The program successfully generates customized IV infusion rate charts.
• It provides on-line drug information essential for correct preparation and administration.
• The software enables rapid dose-to-rate and rate-to-dose calculations, improving workflow efficiency.

Conclusions:

• The developed microcomputer program effectively addresses the challenges of calculating IV infusion rates in critical care.
• This demonstrates that specialized pharmacy software can be developed in-house, affordably and efficiently.
• The program has the potential to improve patient safety and optimize medication management in critical care.