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.
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Has the state of California released any guidance for hospitals on crisis standards of care?
In June, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued its California SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic Crisis Care Guidelines: Concept of Operations/Health Care Facility Surge Operations and Crisis Care, providing a framework to help health care facilities plan for an overwhelming medical surge due to the pandemic. The guidelines include an overview of surge capacity and crisis care operational considerations, as well as a decision-making framework for allocating ventilators and pandemic patient care strategies for scarce resource situations.
Importantly, while the Guidelines provide information to support individual health care facilities or health system operations, CDPH makes clear that the Guidelines do not replace the judgment of operational management, medical directors, legal advisors, or clinical staff or consideration of other relevant variables and options. To assist hospitals as the winter surge continues to grow, CHA has prepared several resources that highlight the guidelines’ key concepts and planning considerations for allocating scarce medical resources during surge operations. These include:
CHA recommends that when hospitals implement the crisis care guidelines they notify the local CDPH district office as a way of communicating the change in operations at the hospital.
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On April 19, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) released the California SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: Health Care Surge Crisis Care Guidelines. In a CHA members-only webinar, senior leadership from CDPH will review the new guidelines, provide insights into their development, and explain how they can inform real-time clinical decisions. Webinar details will be available in CHA’s Coronavirus Response newsletter and on CHA’s education web page later this week.
“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.
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.
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.
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The national supply chain strategy, FEMA reimbursement, crisis care guidelines, and managing hospital surges during a health care pandemic — register for the CHA Disaster Planning Virtual Conference, Sept. 15-16 from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., to hear about these topics and get backstage access to speakers.