ArticleThe western journal of emergency medicine2023
Sustainable Purchasing Practices: A Comparison of Single-use and Reusable Pulse Oximeters in the Emergency Department.
Article in The western journal of emergency medicine, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- The carbon footprints of single-use and reusable medical devices: a systematic review.BMJ open · 2025Pooled it
- Decarbonizing surgical care: a qualitative systematic review guided by the Congruence Model.BMC health services research · 2024Pooled it
- Sustainability indicators for gastrointestinal endoscopy: a framework proposed by the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology and the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy.Journal of the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology · 2026Article
- Choosing Wisely Canada climate-conscious recommendations for critical care medicine.Canadian journal of anaesthesia = Journal canadien d'anesthesie · 2026Article
- Environmental sustainability evidence in critical care medicine: a scoping review.Canadian journal of anaesthesia = Journal canadien d'anesthesie · 2026Article
- Carbon emissions associated with antenatal testing for hepatitis B prophylaxis eligibility, the Gambia.Bulletin of the World Health Organization · 2026Article
- Contribution of hospitals and clinical services to global warming: a scoping systematic review.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- An Innovative Strategy for Sustainability Assurance in Orthopedic Surgery.Medical sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Review
- The green ICU: how to interpret green? A multiple perspective approach.Critical care (London, England) · 2025Review
- Environmental footprint of a colonoscopy procedure: Life cycle assessment.Endoscopy international open · 2025Article
- An innovative method to prevent infection when measuring the arterial blood gas SpO2 saturation.GMS hygiene and infection control · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
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 modelled for the reusable oximeters and compared to the daily use of single-use oximeters (150 uses). We calculated GHG emissions, measured in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents (kgCO Results: Per day of use, reusable oximeters produced fewer greenhouse gases in low-, moderate-, and high-use scenarios compared to disposable oximeters: 3.9 kgCO Conclusion: Reusable pulse oximeters generated fewer greenhouse gas emissions per day of use than their disposable counterparts. Given that the pulse oximeter is an ubiquitous piece of medical equipment used in emergency care globally, carbon emissions could be significantly reduced if EDs used reusable rather than single-use, disposable oximeters.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.