Diminishing Disparities in U.S. Crisis Standards of Care: Medical and Legal Challenges
Hodge JG, Hanfling D, Hick JH, Piatt JL. Diminishing Disparities in U.S. Crisis Standards of Care: Medical and Legal Challenges. EClinicalMedicine – The Lancet. 2021; (online April 16, 2021).
6 Pages Posted: 29 Apr 2021
Date Written: April 16, 2021
Abstract
Despite a decade of planning and development of crisis standards of care (CSC) in the U.S., real-time experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and other disasters have highlighted shortcomings involving potentially disparate outcomes among patients across racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and other groups. Diverse causes of health inequities underlie critical distinctions in medico-legal approaches to allocating scarce resources. What is medically-warranted to save patients’ lives must be balanced against anti-discrimination laws. In this Commentary we examine medical and legal challenges implicated in real-time allocations of limited resources to promote public health, offering a unified approach to diminish disparate impacts among patients.
Note: Funding Statement: There are no independent sources of reported funding for the production of this manuscript.
Declaration of Interests: The authors, James G. Hodge, Jr., JD, LLM, John L. Hick, MD, and Jennifer L. Piatt, JD, report no conflicts of interest. The author, Dan Hanfling, MD, reports that he serves as Co-Chair, U.S. National Academy of Medicine Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness.
Keywords: crisis standard of care, legal, medical, COVID-19, discrimination, disparity, scarce, scarcity, inequities, outcomes, racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, impact
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