Practice Greenhealth

Tools and resources

Anesthetic gas data addendum

  • Anesthetic Gas
  • Greening the Operating Room
  • Greenhouse Gas
  • Toolkit
  • Clinician engagement
(Anesthetic gas toolkit) Use this addendum for a step-by-step example to calculate by hand the MTCO2e from purchasing data. The addendum also reviews terms used when gathering this data.

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Anesthetic gas how-to guide

  • Anesthetic Gas
  • Greening the Operating Room
  • Greenhouse Gas
  • Toolkit
  • Clinician engagement
(Anesthetic gas toolkit) Anesthetic gases represent around 5 percent of a facility’s scope 1 GHG emissions and around 50 percent of an OR’s emissions. The anesthetic gas how-to guide is your one-stop shop for research and talking points to engage anesthesia providers, set a goal, establish a baseline, and identify strategies to reduce your facility’s environmental impact.

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Why anesthesia?

  • Greening the Operating Room
  • Anesthetic Gas
  • Toolkit
  • Clinician engagement
  • Greenhouse Gas
(Anesthetic gas toolkit) Anesthesia and anesthetic gases have a direct impact on the environment, patients, and community health.  This document highlights key talking points and rationale for focusing on anesthesia, such as environmental, financial, and human health impacts and the need to engage providers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

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Anesthetic gas toolkit executive summary

  • Toolkit
  • Anesthetic Gas
  • Greening the Operating Room
  • Greenhouse Gas
(Anesthetic gas toolkit) Anesthesia and anesthetic gases have a direct impact on the environment, patients, and community health.  Use the anesthetic gas toolkit executive summary for a quick overview on key talking points and rationale for focusing on anesthesia and the need to engage providers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

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Anesthetic gas toolkit

  • Anesthetic Gas
  • Greening the Operating Room
  • Toolkit
Practice Greenhealth is pleased to offer partners a toolkit to help hospitals and health systems reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from anesthetic gases. According to the 2023 Practice Greenhealth Sustainability Benchmark Report, 40% of all partners have removed desflurane from general use. In total, Practice Greenhealth partners reduced nearly 200,000 MTCO2e of emissions from inhaled…

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Webinar: Effectively managing waste anesthesia gas

  • Greening the Operating Room
  • Anesthetic Gas
  • Webinar
The energy and equipment needed to safely evacuate Waste Anesthesia Gas (WAG) in the Operating Room (OR) may be operating during unoccupied periods, wasting energy and wearing out equipment.  Concurrently, minimizing the atmospheric exhaust of WAG is considered a key strategy in reducing a health facility’s carbon footprint.  The global warming potential over 100 years (GWP100) of commonly used…

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UCSF Medical Center: Anesthetic gas flow rate stickers

  • Exemplary Document
  • UCSF
  • Anesthetic Gas
  • Greenhouse Gas
  • Clinician engagement
  • Greening the Operating Room
(Anesthetic gas toolkit) Check out the stickers UCSF created to inform providers about the environmental impact of inhaled anesthetics and recommended fresh gas flow rates. 

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UCSF Medical Center: Efficient use of fresh gas flow for inhaled anesthetics

  • Greening the Operating Room
  • Exemplary Document
  • UCSF
  • Report
  • Anesthetic Gas
(Anesthetic gas toolkit) Inhaled anesthetics containing environmentally deleterious greenhouse gases are used daily in the practice of anesthesia. The hypothesis is that a reduction in fresh gas flows would significantly decrease volatile agent consumption and resultant purchasing costs at UCSF. Total fresh gas flows utilized by anesthesia providers were analyzed and the data subsequently used to…

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Virginia Mason: Sustainable anesthesia case cart

  • Greening the Operating Room
  • Exemplary Document
  • Virginia Mason
  • Report
(Anesthetic gas toolkit) In 2015, Virginia Mason continued to improve on their anesthesia carts to enable anesthesiologists to have an environmentally responsible practice. The carts were optimized so that each one has a recycling, compressed aerosols, and a comingled sharps container. Once the standard work was agreed to, all of the carts were standardized to the design, so that it is intuitive…

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Practice Greenhealth is the health care sector’s go-to source for information, tools, data, resources, and expert technical support on sustainability initiatives that help hospitals and health systems meet their health, financial, and community goals.

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Practice Greenhealth is the leading sustainable health care organization, delivering environmental solutions to more than 1,500 hospitals and health systems in the United States and Canada. Partnership opportunities include hospitals, health systems, community health organizations, NGOs, nonprofits, government, academic institutions, and the health care value chain.