Crisis Standards of Care

Crisis Standards of Care
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2013-10-27
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309285526

Disasters and public health emergencies can stress health care systems to the breaking point and disrupt delivery of vital medical services. During such crises, hospitals and long-term care facilities may be without power; trained staff, ambulances, medical supplies and beds could be in short supply; and alternate care facilities may need to be used. Planning for these situations is necessary to provide the best possible health care during a crisis and, if needed, equitably allocate scarce resources. Crisis Standards of Care: A Toolkit for Indicators and Triggers examines indicators and triggers that guide the implementation of crisis standards of care and provides a discussion toolkit to help stakeholders establish indicators and triggers for their own communities. Together, indicators and triggers help guide operational decision making about providing care during public health and medical emergencies and disasters. Indicators and triggers represent the information and actions taken at specific thresholds that guide incident recognition, response, and recovery. This report discusses indicators and triggers for both a slow onset scenario, such as pandemic influenza, and a no-notice scenario, such as an earthquake. Crisis Standards of Care features discussion toolkits customized to help various stakeholders develop indicators and triggers for their own organizations, agencies, and jurisdictions. The toolkit contains scenarios, key questions, and examples of indicators, triggers, and tactics to help promote discussion. In addition to common elements designed to facilitate integrated planning, the toolkit contains chapters specifically customized for emergency management, public health, emergency medical services, hospital and acute care, and out-of-hospital care.

Crisis Standards of Care

Crisis Standards of Care
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 519
Release: 2012-08-26
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309253462

Catastrophic disasters occurring in 2011 in the United States and worldwide-from the tornado in Joplin, Missouri, to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, to the earthquake in New Zealand-have demonstrated that even prepared communities can be overwhelmed. In 2009, at the height of the influenza A (H1N1) pandemic, the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the Department of Health and Human Services, along with the Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a committee of experts to develop national guidance for use by state and local public health officials and health-sector agencies and institutions in establishing and implementing standards of care that should apply in disaster situations-both naturally occurring and man-made-under conditions of scarce resources. Building on the work of phase one (which is described in IOM's 2009 letter report, Guidance for Establishing Crisis Standards of Care for Use in Disaster Situations), the committee developed detailed templates enumerating the functions and tasks of the key stakeholder groups involved in crisis standards of care (CSC) planning, implementation, and public engagement-state and local governments, emergency medical services (EMS), hospitals and acute care facilities, and out-of-hospital and alternate care systems. Crisis Standards of Care provides a framework for a systems approach to the development and implementation of CSC plans, and addresses the legal issues and the ethical, palliative care, and mental health issues that agencies and organizations at each level of a disaster response should address. Please note: this report is not intended to be a detailed guide to emergency preparedness or disaster response. What is described in this report is an extrapolation of existing incident management practices and principles. Crisis Standards of Care is a seven-volume set: Volume 1 provides an overview; Volume 2 pertains to state and local governments; Volume 3 pertains to emergency medical services; Volume 4 pertains to hospitals and acute care facilities; Volume 5 pertains to out-of-hospital care and alternate care systems; Volume 6 contains a public engagement toolkit; and Volume 7 contains appendixes with additional resources.

Crisis Standards of Care

Crisis Standards of Care
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2010-01-22
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 030915037X

During a wide-reaching catastrophic public health emergency or disaster, existing surge capacity plans may not be sufficient to enable health care providers to continue to adhere to normal treatment procedures and follow usual standards of care. This is a particular concern for emergencies that may severely strain resources across a large geographic area, such as a pandemic influenza or the detonation of a nuclear device. Under these circumstances, it may be impossible to provide care according to the standards of care used in non-disaster situations, and, under the most extreme circumstances, it may not even be possible to provide basic life sustaining interventions to all patients who need them. Although recent efforts to address these concerns have accomplished a tremendous amount in just a few years, a great deal remains to be done in even the most advanced plan. This workshop summary highlights the extensive work that is already occurring across the nation. Specifically, the book draws attention to existing federal, state, and local policies and protocols for crisis standards of care; discusses current barriers to increased provider and community engagement; relays examples of existing interstate collaborations; and presents workshop participants' ideas, comments, concerns, and potential solutions to some of the most difficult challenges.

Crisis Standards of Care

Crisis Standards of Care
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012-08-26
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9780309253468

Catastrophic disasters occurring in 2011 in the United States and worldwide-from the tornado in Joplin, Missouri, to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, to the earthquake in New Zealand-have demonstrated that even prepared communities can be overwhelmed. In 2009, at the height of the influenza A (H1N1) pandemic, the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the Department of Health and Human Services, along with the Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a committee of experts to develop national guidance for use by state and local public health officials and health-sector agencies and institutions in establishing and implementing standards of care that should apply in disaster situations-both naturally occurring and man-made-under conditions of scarce resources. Building on the work of phase one (which is described in IOM's 2009 letter report, Guidance for Establishing Crisis Standards of Care for Use in Disaster Situations), the committee developed detailed templates enumerating the functions and tasks of the key stakeholder groups involved in crisis standards of care (CSC) planning, implementation, and public engagement-state and local governments, emergency medical services (EMS), hospitals and acute care facilities, and out-of-hospital and alternate care systems. Crisis Standards of Care provides a framework for a systems approach to the development and implementation of CSC plans, and addresses the legal issues and the ethical, palliative care, and mental health issues that agencies and organizations at each level of a disaster response should address. Please note: this report is not intended to be a detailed guide to emergency preparedness or disaster response. What is described in this report is an extrapolation of existing incident management practices and principles. Crisis Standards of Care is a seven-volume set: Volume 1 provides an overview; Volume 2 pertains to state and local governments; Volume 3 pertains to emergency medical services; Volume 4 pertains to hospitals and acute care facilities; Volume 5 pertains to out-of-hospital care and alternate care systems; Volume 6 contains a public engagement toolkit; and Volume 7 contains appendixes with additional resources.

Opioid Reckoning

Opioid Reckoning
Author: Amy C. Sullivan
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2021-10-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1452962553

Examines the complexity and the humanity of the opioid epidemic America’s opioid epidemic continues to ravage families and communities, despite intense media coverage, federal legislation, criminal prosecutions, and harm reduction efforts to prevent overdose deaths. More than 450,000 Americans have died from opioid overdoses since the late 1990s. In Opioid Reckoning, Amy C. Sullivan explores the complexity of the crisis through firsthand accounts of people grappling with the reverberating effects of stigma, treatment, and recovery. Nearly everyone in the United States has been touched in some way by the opioid epidemic, including the author and her family. Sullivan uses her own story as a launching point to learn how the opioid epidemic challenged longstanding recovery protocols in Minnesota, a state internationally recognized for pioneering addiction treatment. By centering the voices of many people who have experienced opioid use, treatment, recovery, and loss, Sullivan exposes the devastating effects of a one-size-fits-all approach toward treatment of opioid dependency. Taking a clear-eyed, nonjudgmental perspective of every aspect of these issues—drug use, parenting, harm reduction, medication, abstinence, and stigma—Opioid Reckoning questions current treatment models, healthcare inequities, and the criminal justice system. Sullivan also imagines a future where anyone suffering an opioid-use disorder has access to the individualized care, without judgment, available to those with other health problems. Opioid Reckoning presents a captivating look at how the state that invented “rehab” addresses the challenges of the opioid epidemic and its overdose deaths while also taking readers into the intimate lives of families, medical and social work professionals, grassroots activists, and many others impacted by the crisis who contribute their insights and potential solutions. In sharing these stories and chronicling their lessons, Sullivan offers a path forward that cultivates empathy, love, and hope for anyone affected by chaotic drug use and its harms.

Guidance for Establishing Crisis Standards of Care for Use in Disaster Situations

Guidance for Establishing Crisis Standards of Care for Use in Disaster Situations
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2009-10-23
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309144302

The influenza pandemic caused by the 2009 H1N1 virus underscores the immediate and critical need to prepare for a public health emergency in which thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of people suddenly seek and require medical care in communities across the United States. Guidance for Establishing Crisis Standards of Care for Use in Disaster Situations draws from a broad spectrum of expertise-including state and local public health, emergency medicine and response, primary care, nursing, palliative care, ethics, the law, behavioral health, and risk communication-to offer guidance toward establishing standards of care that should apply to disaster situations, both naturally occurring and man-made, under conditions in which resources are scarce. This book explores two case studies that illustrate the application of the guidance and principles laid out in the report. One scenario focuses on a gradual-onset pandemic flu. The other scenario focuses on an earthquake and the particular issues that would arise during a no-notice event. Outlining current concepts and offering guidance, this book will prove an asset to state and local public health officials, health care facilities, and professionals in the development of systematic and comprehensive policies and protocols for standards of care in disasters when resources are scarce. In addition, the extensive operations section of the book provides guidance to clinicians, health care institutions, and state and local public health officials for how crisis standards of care should be implemented in a disaster situation.

Ethical Public Health Policy Within Pandemics

Ethical Public Health Policy Within Pandemics
Author: Michael Boylan
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2022-06-23
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3030996921

This book contains original essays that look at contagious/infectious disease pandemics and the ethical public policy and administration these have entailed. In particular, the pandemics of the 1918 flu pandemic, HIV in the 1990s, SARS in 2003, Ebola from 2014–2016 and the novel COVID-19 in 2020 are highlighted. The contributions in this work offer the reader insights in these and several other recent pandemics that present differently—either via contagion or mortality rate—and how each should be addressed by countries of various sorts. This book is a must for the ongoing debate on how we should treat public health crises, such as the one we have all just encountered in the novel COVID-19 pandemic.

Ohio under COVID

Ohio under COVID
Author: Katherine Sorrels
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2023-04-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0472903063

In early March of 2020, Americans watched with uncertain terror as the novel coronavirus pandemic unfolded. One week later, Ohio announced its first confirmed cases. Just one year later, the state had over a million cases and 18,000 Ohioans had died. What happened in that first pandemic year is not only a story of a public health disaster, but also a story of social disparities and moral dilemmas, of lives and livelihoods turned upside down, and of institutions and safety nets stretched to their limits. Ohio under COVID tells the human story of COVID in Ohio, America’s bellwether state. Scholars and practitioners examine the pandemic response from multiple angles, and contributors from numerous walks of life offer moving first-person reflections. Two themes emerge again and again: how the pandemic revealed a deep tension between individual autonomy and the collective good, and how it exacerbated social inequalities in a state divided along social, economic, and political lines. Chapters address topics such as mask mandates, ableism, prisons, food insecurity, access to reproductive health care, and the need for more Black doctors. The book concludes with an interview with Dr. Amy Acton, the state’s top public health official at the time COVID hit Ohio. Ohio under COVID captures the devastating impact of the pandemic, both in the public discord it has unearthed and in the unfair burdens it has placed on the groups least equipped to bear them.

Assuring the Quality of Health Care in the European Union

Assuring the Quality of Health Care in the European Union
Author: Helena Legido-Quigley
Publisher: World Health Organization
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2008
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9289071931

People have always travelled within Europe for work and leisure, although never before with the current intensity. Now, however, they are travelling for many other reasons, including the quest for key services such as health care. Whatever the reason for travelling, one question they ask is "If I fall ill, will the health care I receive be of a high standard?" This book examines, for the first time, the systems that have been put in place in all of the European Union's 27 Member States. The picture it paints is mixed. Some have well developed systems, setting standards based on the best available evidence, monitoring the care provided, and taking action where it falls short. Others need to overcome significant obstacles.

Biomedical Ethics and Decision-Making

Biomedical Ethics and Decision-Making
Author: Matthew A. Butkus
Publisher: Gegensatz Press
Total Pages: 544
Release: 2022-02-11
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1621308014

Drawing from clinical experience, philosophy, psychology, and current health law and policy, Biomedical Ethics and Decision-Making is a detailed survey of persistent issues in health care ethics, emphasizing the complexities and nuances of practical decision-making and yielding a multifaceted and systematic approach to solving problems. As a useful resource for both students and clinicians, it includes references for further exploration of ethical issues as well as provocative questions for discussion in classroom and clinical settings. As a textbook, it stands alongside such standard works as Beauchamp's and Childress's Principles of Biomedical Ethics; DeGrazia's, Mappes's, and Ballard's Biomedical Ethics; Munson's Intervention and Reflection; and Vaughn's Bioethics. Besides presenting current dilemmas in health care, it reviews elements of cognitive psychology, describes common errors in critical thinking, offers techniques for evaluating and integrating evidence into ethical reasoning, assesses professionals and professionalism, invites readers to dissect philosophical analyses to bolster their critical thinking skills, and provides opportunities to engage in self-reflection on contemporary challenges in health care policy and delivery.