November 1, 2012

In August, MSN student Jacqueline Dombrowski, who hopes to specialize in anesthesia upon graduating in May 2013, presented a performance improvement project at the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists’ (AANA) annual conference in San Francisco. Her project focused specifically on the Anesthesia Department within the Christiana Health Care System. “Overall, I wanted to show that the department could reduce its carbon footprint by using low gas flows during anesthesia,” she noted. Jacqueline collected data within the department during the course of 9 months and found that Christiana saved an overall 20% in gas purchasing prices. However, environmental benefits and cost reductions were only two of the advantages that she initially predicted of using lower gas flows during anesthesia. “Although they were adequately anesthetized during surgery, patients also woke up warmer and faster,” Jacqueline said of the additional benefits.