Financial and environmental costs of reusable and single-use anaesthetic equipment

Abstract

Background. An innovative approach to choosing hospital equipment is to consider the environmental costs in addition to other costs and benefits. Methods. We used life cycle assessment to model the environmental and financial costs of different scenarios of replacing reusable anaesthetic equipment with single-use variants. The primary environmental costs were CO2 emissions (in CO2 equivalents) and water use (in litres). We compared energy source mixes between Australia, the UK/Europe, and the USA. Results. For an Australian hospital with six operating rooms, the annual financial cost of converting from single-use equipment to reusable anaesthetic equipment would be an AUD$32 033 (£19 220..