Three otherwise healthy patients go to the emergency department with severe acute respiratory failure. Only one ventilator, required to sustain life until the worst of the coronavirus infection has passed, is available. Who gets the vent?
That's what "A Framework for Rationing Ventilators and Critical Care Beds During the COVID-19 Pandemic," a Viewpoint just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), addresses. Douglas White, MD, MAS, Endowed Chair for Ethics in Critical Care Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Bernie Lo, MD, from the University of California, San Francisco, wrote the Viewpoint, which links to a full policy document that's been in the works since 2009. It is being implemented in several states and can easily be adapted to any hospital, Dr. White said in a Webinar on March 27.
To continue reading go to Genetic Literacy Project, where this post first appeared.