Volatile Anesthetic Choice and Duration of Hospitalization: A Quality Improvement and Cost-control Project

Preliminary retrospective data suggest that the relatively soluble but inexpensive volatile anesthesia isoflurane prolongs the duration of hospitalization compared to the less soluble but more expensive anesthetic sevoflurane. Even a small reduction in the duration of hospitalization would easily compensate for the modest additional cost of sevoflurane. The investigators therefore propose to test the primary hypothesis that duration of hospitalization is longer with isoflurane than sevoflurane.

The investigators will also test the secondary hypotheses that: 1) pain scores are greater in patients recovering from isoflurane than sevoflurane anesthesia; and, 2) opioid consumption is greater after isoflurane than sevoflurane anesthesia. All statistical analyses will be adjusted for age, gender, race, baseline risk, 9 and procedure.