# 43. Hard Limits and Guardrails "force" nurses to waste half the dose of IV medication.
Alaris, Baxter, B. Braun and other IV pump companies program their machines to give less than HALF the dose of IV antibiotics! They do not pre-program their IV pumps with sufficient "volume to be infused" or VTBI to empty the antibiotic out of the IV tubing.
95 percent of Nurses routinely give only half or less of the intravenous antibiotic dose. The IV Pump companies are keeping that incompetence level high.
I witnessed this mistake at two additional Hospitals in August 2020 while working for the California Health Corps. Ten out of 10 nurses refused to override Guardrails for fear of being reprimanded or fired. Ten out of 10 patients got less than half of their IV antibiotic.
See "7 IV Antibiotic Medication Mistakes," by David Holt for more information, or go to:
RN-IVPB.com
and read the Alaris page and then do the "Death" page instructions with red Gatorade to demonstrate to your peers what is wrong with your system.
Get your IV policies updated and teach it.
Get the medical staff involved. Get your patients full doses of IV medication.