Denver Health is changing the way doctors administer nitrous oxide, saving money, medication and air quality

Denver Health is changing the way its doctors administer nitrous oxide, a common anesthetic used to sedate people during surgeries, after realizing how much is wasted. This saves you money and medication and reduces the hospital’s CO2 emissions.

In a technical room at the hospital on Bannock Street, Dr. David Abts, an anesthesiologist, surrounded by tanks of nitrous oxide – commonly known as nitrous oxide. Its use as an anesthetic in hospitals is poised for a radical change that hospital leaders say will benefit both patients and the Earth’s ozone layer.

Denver Health is removing the tanks in which it was stored. It will be the state’s first major health system — and one of the first in the country — to move away from a centralized fueling and delivery system.

According to the hospital, the change followed the discovery of how much gas was wasted with the current system, the financial cost it incurred and the impact it had on air quality.

The large tanks in the main hospital were part of a system to deliver nitrous oxide throughout the building. In the future, the gas will only be administered from small bottles.

Doctors told CBS Colorado that the decision was made after realizing how costly and wasteful the fueling system had become.

Abts said the previous model’s CO2 emissions were equivalent to driving an SUV from Denver to New York City 1,800 times, driving around the world 130 times or driving to the moon and back 13 times per year. Last year, they reduced that waste by about 95%, he said.

“We lose 90% of the nitrous oxide we purchase through the wall pipe systems alone before it even reaches patients,” said Dr. Amanda Deis, pediatric anesthesiologist at Denver Health. “That’s an enormous amount of greenhouse gases with warming potential that is costing the healthcare system money, is bad for the environment and is not helping patients at all.”

According to Denver Health, healthcare accounts for 10% of the U.S. economy’s total impact on climate change. Leaders say they are pleased that this change will significantly improve the hospital’s environmental footprint.

“This is a pretty monumental day,” Deis said. “Because we contribute so much to healthcare waste and environmental degradation, it’s great to be part of something so much bigger than myself.”