An assembly for use during a medical or surgical procedure comprises a chassis adapted to be removably coupled with a mobile waste collection cart that has at least one container for storing waste withdrawn from a patient, a vacuum pump mounted to said chassis, and a vacuum regulator mounted to the chassis for regulating the level of suction drawn on the container of the mobile cart. A chassis vacuum coupling is mounted to said chassis and connected to the vacuum pump to establish a connection between said chassis vacuum coupling and a complementary cart vacuum coupling so as to establish a path over which a vacuum can be drawn by the vacuum pump on the at least one container mobile of the waste collection cart. A communication circuit is mounted to the chassis for receiving a signal from the mobile waste collection cart representative of the pressure in the at least one container, and a controller is mounted to the chassis and configured to receive from the communication circuit the signal and, based on the signal representative of the pressure, control said vacuum regulator to set the level of suction drawn on the at least one container of the mobile waste collection cart
