The UCSF Health Operating Room dashboards includes the surgical locations at the Parnassus, Mount Zion, and Mission Bay medical centers, as well as the Parnassus Outpatient Surgery Center and the Osher Center locations. In the OR, UCSF Health is focusing on reducing emissions from inhaled anesthetic gasses, and diverting landfill waste by switching to reusable equipment and more efficient workflows.
In depth waste audits have been completed in the OR to target waste reduction opportunities, including reviewing OR kits, medical single use device reprocessing, and using reusable sterilization containers.
Anesthetic gasses are potent greenhouse gasses with high global warming potentials. Less than 5% of anesthetic gasses are metabolized by patients, meaning the rest is exhaled out and released into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change. To reduce anesthetic associates Scope 1 emissions, UCSF Health has implemented a Clinical Decisions Support tool in the Electronic Health Record to alert providers when Fresh Gas Flow exceeds a certain threshold during the maintenance phase of anesthesia, and has eliminated the use of desflurane, the anesthetic gas with the highest global warming potential. In addition, UCSF Health is in the process of switching out the leak-prone central pipe system and transitioning to smaller portable E-cylinders for nitrous oxide delivery. This effort is projected to decrease emissions from nitrous oxide by 83%.
