Rationing Crisis: Bogus Standards of Care Unmasked by COVID-19
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-2020
ISSN
1526-5161
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Language
en-US
Abstract
After the spectacular failure to apply acceptable triage methods to evacuate patients from a flooded Memorial Hospital during Hurricane Katrina, preparedness planning was intensified (Fink Citation2013). Regarding physicians and hospitals, two approaches got the most attention: (1) diluting the legal “standard of care” for physicians and hospitals so they would be immune from lawsuit for negligent acts during a crisis (“crisis standards of care”); and (2) developing triage protocols for scarce resource allocation. Both can be considered crude works in process. Nonetheless, in the midst of the greatest national crisis since 9/11, I think it is time to declare the crisis standards of care approach dead, and the triage approach in need of significant therapy to survive.
The idea that unites these two approaches seems seductively straightforward: in a crisis there is a danger that medical resources, such as ventilators, may be in such short supply that at least some physicians may not be able to obtain them for all of their patients who need them. In these circumstances, it is suggested that the duty of physicians shifts from “standard of care” medicine focused on individual patients to “crisis standards of care” under which the physician’s loyalty is transferred from individual patients to “acting to prioritize the community.” (Berlinger et al. Citation2020; Institute of Medicine Citation2009).
Recommended Citation
George J. Annas,
Rationing Crisis: Bogus Standards of Care Unmasked by COVID-19
,
in
20
The American Journal of Bioethics
167
(2020).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3505
