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I N H A L A T I O N A L
A N E S T H E S I A
1. Cost savings
Where is low-flow use most widespread? In third-world countries
where the high cost of volatile agents desflurane and sevoflurane
demand cost-savings measures wherever possible. The expense of
volatile anesthetics directly affects your anesthesia budget — if your
providers dropped flow rates from 2L per minute to 500cc per minute,
for example, you'd realize several thousand dollars a year in savings
per OR — so convince your providers to limit flows of the costliest
agents. Isoflurane is inexpensive, so the potential cost savings of
using it during low-flow anesthesia is nominal. If your providers use
sevoflurane or desflurane, however, the cost savings can add up.
2. Less waste
The higher the flow of air and oxygen through your anesthesia
machine, the more volatile agent the flow picks up and potentially
releases into the atmosphere. The negative impact of waste anesthetic
gases on the atmosphere is very small, but very real, and something
you need to be conscious of limiting.
Perhaps a more immediate and tangible danger hits closer to home:
Waste anesthesia gas also contaminates the OR and could harm your
surgical team members, a potential danger regulated by OSHA. No
worker should be exposed to a concentration of waste anesthetic gases
>2 parts per million (ppm) of any halogenated anesthetic agent, according to OSHA recommendations. When such agents are used in combina8 0
O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | F E B R U A R Y 2013
