Lessons · Nursing · intake and output over a shift
Intake and output: two columns, one total each
Everything that goes in is added up in millilitres, everything that comes out is added up in millilitres, and the two totals are written at the end of the shift.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
At 1900 the sheet has to be totalled for the next nurse and for the round in the morning. Half the entries are in cups and ounces and half are in millilitres, and a column that was never converted is a total nobody can use.
How to think about it
Convert everything to millilitres first, using the conversion the chart or the problem gives, such as 30 mL to the ounce. Add the intake column: oral fluids, tube flushes, IV fluids. Add the output column: urine, drainage, emesis. Write both totals with mL on them, then subtract for the balance.
Worked example
Intake: 200 mL tea + 150 mL soup + 900 mL IVEverything that went in, already in millilitres.
Total intake = 200 + 150 + 900 = 1250 mLOne column, one total.
Output: 400 mL urine + 320 mL urine + 80 mL drainEverything measured coming out.
Total output = 400 + 320 + 80 = 800 mLThe second column.
4 oz juice at 30 mL per oz = 4 × 30 = 120 mLA cup written in ounces, converted before it joins the column.
Your turn
A chart counts 30 mL to the ounce. Write 6 oz in millilitres.
6 × 30 = mL
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Adding ounces into a column of millilitres. Eight ounces counted as 8 makes a shift look like it drank almost nothing. Convert first, then add, and put mL on every line of the column.