Medication Math Basics: Working with Decimals - Video Lesson

Welcome back, everybody. This lesson explores how to do the math associated with the measurements we have discussed in other lessons on medication administration basics. Understanding how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide numbers with decimals are important skills in many healthcare settings. As a quick reminder, decimals are used to represent an amount that is less than one full unit of the measurement. Decimals are commonly used when expressing measurements in metric units. For example, if you're measuring liquids in liters, but the amount you have is only one fourth of a liter, you would write that with a decimal zero point two five liters. If you had a whole liter with one fourth of another liter, you would write this as one point two five liters. Decimals have a whole number part and a fractional part separated by a decimal point. The value of a decimal is determined by the position of the number in relation to the decimal