Provider Education and Vaporizer Labeling Lead to Reduced Anesthetic Agent Purchasing With Cost Savings and Reduced Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Anesthetic agents are known greenhouse gases with hundreds to thousands of times the global warming impact compared with carbon dioxide. We sought to mitigate the negative environmental and financial impacts of our practice in the perioperative setting through multidisciplinary staff engagement and provider education on flow rate reduction and volatile agent choice. These efforts led to a 64% per case reduction in carbon dioxide equivalent emissions (163 kg in Fiscal Year 2012, compared with 58 kg in Fiscal Year 2015), as well as a cost savings estimate of $25,000 per month. Accepted for publication August 1, 2018. Funding: K.L.Z. receives nonclinical time for her role as Medical Director of Sustainability for UW Health. The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Supplemental digital content is available for this article. Direct URL citations appear in the printed text and are provided in the HTML and PDF versions of this article on the journal's website (https://ift.tt/KegmMq). Reprints will not be available from the authors. Address correspondence to Karin L. Zuegge, MD, Department of Anesthesiology, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, 600 Highland Ave, Madison, WI 53792. Address e-mail to zuegge@wisc.edu. © 2018 International Anesthesia Research Society

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