A nurse is caring for a client who is postoperative following an appendectomy and is prescribed D, lactated Ringer's at 150 mL/hr by continuous IV infusion for 12 hr. The drop factor of the manual IV tubing is 20 gtt/mL. The nurse should set the manual IV infusion to deliver how many gtt/min? (Round the answer to the nearest whole number. Use a leading zero if it applies. Do not use a trailing zero.)

Infusion rate: 150 mL/hr Drop factor of the tubing: 20 gtt/mL First, we need to convert the infusion rate from mL/hr to mL/min: Infusion rate (mL/min)=60 minutes/hourInfusion rate (mL/hr)​ Infusion rate (mL/min)=60 minutes/hour150 mL/hr​=2.5 mL/min Now we can calculate the drops per minute using the drop factor: Drops/minute=Infusion rate (mL/min)×Drop factor (gtt/mL) Drops/minute=2.5 mL/min×20 gtt/mL=50 gtt/min Therefore, the nurse should set the manual IV infusion to deliver 50 gtt/min.