Public health emergencies, natural disasters, and mass casualty events require hospitals to implement triage protocols to prioritize care based on patient severity and treatment likelihood. Hospitals must strive for equitable access, particularly for vulnerable populations, while addressing the ethical implications of resource allocation.
2020 Virtual Disaster Conference
This presentation reviews how hospitals can develop and implement guidelines for continuing care when resources become critically constrained. The session provides information for hospitals on the process of shifting from conventional to contingency and ultimately to crisis care, where the focus transitions from individual patient care to managing care for the broader population. Highlights of the session include the ethical and non-discriminatory decision-making processes that help prepare hospitals for adapting their operations.
“Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures…” – Benet Wilson
COVID-19 is challenging America’s health care providers in ways we never imagined. To support them in making difficult decisions during times of scarce medical supplies, California’s health care leadership has been developing guidance that will help frontline health care workers make some of the hardest decisions of their lives.
2021 Virtual Disaster Conference
Presented by UC Davis Health, this session offers a unique perspective to Crisis Standards of Care, offering strategies for operating with scarce resources in disaster events. Learn how this system convened a group of physicians, bio-ethicists, communications specialists, and disaster planners to work through this incredibly arduous topic.
The pandemic has revealed weaknesses in the health care system and how we deliver care. The Emergency Department is often on the front line when making difficult decisions regarding care when resources become scarce. It is important to address this with education on crisis standards of care as well as scrutiny of existing models. This includes challenging how they are best designed to meet our current needs, where there might be crucial gaps in the assessment of need and delivery of care, and when they must be implemented.
Adapting Care under Extreme Conditions In 2006 the American Nurses Association (ANA) embarked on a new effort to engage the nursing profession in the policy development process on a timely policy issue impacting their profession. The resulting policy document addresses topics relevant to health professionals who provide care during extreme emergencies and with scarce resources.
When the demand for healthcare services surpasses available resources, hospitals face challenging decisions. Effective resource allocation requires assessing the urgency and necessity of treatments, and hospitals may establish frameworks to prioritize patients based on factors such as the severity of their condition, the likelihood of treatment benefit, and overall public health outcomes.
2024 Disaster Conference
This presentation shares experiences leading successful teams and averting crisis, and explores techniques that can be used to help even the most novice leader rise to meet the challenge in front of them and bring their teams along with them.
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Crisis has a way of reminding us of our commonalities.
Take, for instance, Hurricane Helene. Though California is far from the storm’s devastation, its effects have rippled all the way to our coast due to the temporary closure of Baxter International’s North Carolina plant, which supplies 60% of the nation’s IV fluids. Hospitals across the country are working to ensure continued patient care despite a shortage of supplies critical to emergency care, trauma, oncology, surgery, and other lifesaving services.
This Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication Toolkit is designed to support writing and implementing a crisis communication plan that clearly defines hospitals’ goals, objectives and actions in response to a disaster. The toolkit also provides specific guidelines and instructions for communicating during emergencies. Download the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication Toolkit