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Environmental sustainability in anaesthesia and critical care

The detrimental health effects of climate change continue to increase. Although health systems respond to this disease burden, healthcare itself pollutes the atmosphere, land, and waterways. We surveyed the ‘state of the art’ environmental sustainability research in anaesthesia and critical care, ad...

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Autores principales: McGain, Forbes, Muret, Jane, Lawson, Cathy, Sherman, Jodi D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: British Journal of Anaesthesia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7421303/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32798068
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bja.2020.06.055
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author McGain, Forbes
Muret, Jane
Lawson, Cathy
Sherman, Jodi D.
author_facet McGain, Forbes
Muret, Jane
Lawson, Cathy
Sherman, Jodi D.
author_sort McGain, Forbes
collection PubMed
description The detrimental health effects of climate change continue to increase. Although health systems respond to this disease burden, healthcare itself pollutes the atmosphere, land, and waterways. We surveyed the ‘state of the art’ environmental sustainability research in anaesthesia and critical care, addressing why it matters, what is known, and ideas for future work. Focus is placed upon the atmospheric chemistry of the anaesthetic gases, recent work clarifying their relative global warming potentials, and progress in waste anaesthetic gas treatment. Life cycle assessment (LCA; i.e. ‘cradle to grave’ analysis) is introduced as the definitive method used to compare and contrast ecological footprints of products, processes, and systems. The number of LCAs within medicine has gone from rare to an established body of knowledge in the past decade that can inform doctors of the relative ecological merits of different techniques. LCAs with practical outcomes are explored, such as the carbon footprint of reusable vs single-use anaesthetic devices (e.g. drug trays, laryngoscope blades, and handles), and the carbon footprint of treating an ICU patient with septic shock. Avoid, reduce, reuse, recycle, and reprocess are then explored. Moving beyond routine clinical care, the vital influences that the source of energy (renewables vs fossil fuels) and energy efficiency have in healthcare's ecological footprint are highlighted. Discussion of the integral roles of research translation, education, and advocacy in driving the perioperative and critical care environmental sustainability agenda completes this review.
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spelling pubmed-74213032020-08-12 Environmental sustainability in anaesthesia and critical care McGain, Forbes Muret, Jane Lawson, Cathy Sherman, Jodi D. Br J Anaesth Clinical Practice The detrimental health effects of climate change continue to increase. Although health systems respond to this disease burden, healthcare itself pollutes the atmosphere, land, and waterways. We surveyed the ‘state of the art’ environmental sustainability research in anaesthesia and critical care, addressing why it matters, what is known, and ideas for future work. Focus is placed upon the atmospheric chemistry of the anaesthetic gases, recent work clarifying their relative global warming potentials, and progress in waste anaesthetic gas treatment. Life cycle assessment (LCA; i.e. ‘cradle to grave’ analysis) is introduced as the definitive method used to compare and contrast ecological footprints of products, processes, and systems. The number of LCAs within medicine has gone from rare to an established body of knowledge in the past decade that can inform doctors of the relative ecological merits of different techniques. LCAs with practical outcomes are explored, such as the carbon footprint of reusable vs single-use anaesthetic devices (e.g. drug trays, laryngoscope blades, and handles), and the carbon footprint of treating an ICU patient with septic shock. Avoid, reduce, reuse, recycle, and reprocess are then explored. Moving beyond routine clinical care, the vital influences that the source of energy (renewables vs fossil fuels) and energy efficiency have in healthcare's ecological footprint are highlighted. Discussion of the integral roles of research translation, education, and advocacy in driving the perioperative and critical care environmental sustainability agenda completes this review. British Journal of Anaesthesia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2020-11 2020-08-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7421303/ /pubmed/32798068 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bja.2020.06.055 Text en © 2020 British Journal of Anaesthesia. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Clinical Practice
McGain, Forbes
Muret, Jane
Lawson, Cathy
Sherman, Jodi D.
Environmental sustainability in anaesthesia and critical care
title Environmental sustainability in anaesthesia and critical care
title_full Environmental sustainability in anaesthesia and critical care
title_fullStr Environmental sustainability in anaesthesia and critical care
title_full_unstemmed Environmental sustainability in anaesthesia and critical care
title_short Environmental sustainability in anaesthesia and critical care
title_sort environmental sustainability in anaesthesia and critical care
topic Clinical Practice
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7421303/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32798068
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bja.2020.06.055
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