Model Hospital Policy for Fair Allocation of Medications to Treat COVID-19

To assist hospitals and health systems to implement a transparent and fair approach to allocate scarce medications to treat patients with COVID-19, the University of Pittsburgh Department of Critical Care Medicine has created a model hospital policy and allocation framework.  Hospitals and health systems are welcome to adapt the policy for their specific needs. Click here to download a PDF version of the Model Hospital Policy for Fair Allocation of Medications to Treat COVID-19. Since March 2020, the number of clinical trials to assess the efficacy of medications to treat COVID-19 has expanded rapidly. As the trials start to identify beneficial therapies, hospitals will face difficult choices about which patients should be treated when there is not enough medication to treat all patients with COVID-19. Dr. Douglas White led a multidisciplinary team to develop a framework to fairly allocate scarce COVID-19 treatments. The team included diversity and inclusion experts, ethicists, economists, and medical specialists from the University of Pittsburgh, Harvard University, University of Denver, Boston College and MIT. What are the important features of the model policy? An allocation team, not the treating clinicians, makes the allocation decisions. This promotes objectivity, avoids conflicts of commitment, and minimizes clinicians’ moral distress. The framework is designed to enhance medical benefit for communities, ensure meaningful access and i...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Tags: Health Care syndicated Source Type: blogs