• Sturdiness. Product quality is paramount, so don't choose a less
expensive product if you think it could put patient safety at risk.
There's a good chance some of your anesthesia providers will have a
bias against single-use laryngoscopes because they look flimsy com-
pared with reusables. That's understandable, as most of them are
made of plastic parts versus metal. In use, however, we've found our
single-use scopes incredibly sturdy. We haven't had any breakage
problems or problems with ineffectiveness. However, your anesthe-
sia team must trial these products to gain experience and develop
confidence in their structural integrity and feel. Our trialing process
took a lot of time and effort, but it provided comfort and confidence
for our anesthesia providers who use these products.
• Ergonomics. Here we're talking about comfort, ease of use, grip
and feel. Again, you can only really judge these factors through trial-
ing.
• Assembly. Some disposable laryngoscopes come as one specific-
use product, with the blade and handle preassembled. Others offer
the option of mixing and matching handles with different blade sizes.
This is another choice you must make with input from your anesthe-
sia providers. A potential advantage of the mix-and-match approach is
saving space. One handle and three or four different sized blades take
up less space than three or four preassembled blade-handle combina-
tions.
Another potential advantage: If you open up the packaging in the
OR and the blade is the wrong size for your patient, you'd only need
to open up a new blade instead of opening both a new blade and a
new handle, and wasting another battery in the process. So there are
potential comparative cost and space savings with the mix-and-match
approach, but all-in-ones definitely have their own benefits. During
our trial, anesthesia team members preferred the all-in-one option
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