“Everyone in health care should strive to reduce the industry’s pollution footprint,” said Jodi Sherman, M.D., lead author of the study and assistant professor of anesthesiology and environmental compliance officer, Yale University, School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn. “Health care pollution is a patient safety issue, with indirect costs to society that are as yet unaccounted for. The good news is we can easily reduce this pollution at no added cost.”
The first solution researchers suggest is to avoid using the anesthesia gases with the biggest carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, desflurane and nitrous oxide. They suggest substituting sevoflurane and isoflurane, which are 20 times less polluting but still effective, or propofol when possible as it is four orders of magnitude less polluting. When Yale-New Haven Hospital stopped using those two gases alone, inhaled anesthetic gas emissions were reduced 11-fold, Dr. Sherman said. Other solutions include: reducing the gas flow rates of inhaled anesthesia, which can be done safely while maintaining effective anesthesia; recapturing waste anesthetic gases after use; and using intravenous and regional anesthetic techniques rather than inhaled anesthesia when appropriate.
“This is a new concept, and inhaled anesthetics are a really low-hanging fruit to target for a significant reduction in greenhouse gas pollution,” said Dr. Sherman.
THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF ANESTHESIOLOGISTS®Founded in 1905, the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA®) is an educational, research and scientific society with more than 52,000 members organized to raise and maintain the standards of the medical practice of anesthesiology. ASA is committed to ensuring that physician anesthesiologists evaluate and supervise the medical care of patients before, during, and after surgery to provide the highest quality and safest care that every patient deserves.
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