Surgical smoke can contain bioaerosols, viruses and chemicals, some of which are known carcinogens, and is potentially dangerous to operating room (OR) staff. The health hazards to those who inhale surgical smoke over time include infection and debilitating illness.¹

The Joint Commission, a national standards-setting and accrediting body in health care, recommends safety actions for managing the hazards of surgical smoke, including the use of smoke management devices to reduce the risk of potential exposure to aerosolized contaminants.² New York State is the latest to enact OR smoke control legislation mandating that hospitals install local exhaust ventilation systems in procedure rooms to control smoke and reduce the risk of staff exposure, bringing the total of states with smoke control legislation to 10.³

"Containing surgical smoke is critical for the health and wellbeing of surgical staff, which is why we are very pleased to be able to offer the Olympus smoke control solutions to Vizient members as part of this collaboration," said Sean Ward, Vice President for Enterprise Solutions at Olympus Corporation of the Americas.

Vizient is the largest member-driven healthcare performance improvement company in the U.S. serving more than half of the healthcare organizations nationwide. Vizient members represent a diverse base of integrated delivery networks, academic medical centers, pediatric facilities, community hospitals and non-acute health care providers that collectively have more than $130 billion in annual purchasing volume.

The entire Olympus surgical smoke portfolio is made available under this contract, including:

• The OR-VAC™ Surgical Smoke Plume Evacuation System provides smoke management for physician offices and outpatient surgery centers and features a variable filter life, compact design, and three-port filter with filter life tracking capabilities.⁴
• The Telescopic Smoke Evacuation Pencil features an extendable, telescopic capture port that extends up to six and half inches and is designed to get closer to the surgical site, thus eliminating the need to exchange electrodes.³
• The Ultravision^™ Smoke Management System Generator uses electrostatic precipitation to suppress surgical smoke during laparoscopic surgery, down to 0.007 μm (sub-viral) particle size,^5,6 and significantly reduces CO2 exposure to patients during laparoscopic procedures.
• The UHI-4 (High Flow Insufflation Unit with Smoke Evacuation capabilities) insufflates the abdominal cavity to facilitate laparoscopic observation, diagnosis, and treatment. The UHI-4 also provides an option for automatic smoke evacuation working in conjunction with the Olympus THUNDERBEAT^™ device platform.

Olympus surgical smoke evacuation solutions support health care organizations in improving the work life of health care providers, which, along with enhancing patient experience, improving population health, and reducing costs, is part of the Quadruple Aim to advance health care efficiency