Sustainable Purchasing Practices: A Comparison of Single-use and Reusable Pulse Oximeters in the Emergency Department.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Delivering healthcare requires significant resources and creates waste that pollutes the environment, contributes to the climate crisis, and harms human health. Prior studies have generally shown durable, reusable medical devices to be environmentally superior to disposables, but this has not been investigated for pulse oximetry probes.

Objective

Our goal was to compare the daily carbon footprint of single-use and reusable pulse oximeters in the emergency department (ED).

Methods

Using a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), we analyzed greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from pulse oximeter use in an urban, tertiary care ED, that sees approximately 150 patients per day. Low (387 uses), moderate (474 uses), and high use (561 uses), as well as cleaning scenarios, were mod

SUBMITTER: Duffy J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10754185 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature