Matching the design of anesthesia life-support equipment with environmental challenges

Surgery is an essential component of health systems. Anesthesia is a necessity for the delivery of safe and effective surgical care. In emerging healthcare systems, anesthesia providers are often the only providers of life support, with the anesthesia machine being the tool most often used for this purpose. The use of anesthesia machines that are not designed to match existing constraints in low-resource environment places patients in these locations at risk of suffering cardiac or brain damage from anoxia and hypercapnia, awakening during surgery, or acquiring infectious diseases. These risks can be mitigated with appropriately designed equipment.