Preparing for a potential surge in COVID-19 patient admissions, Oregon Health Authority on Friday provided the state’s hospitals with the long-awaited interim crisis care tool .
It’s a sort of roadmap for activating crisis standards of care which will help health care providers prioritize treatment when resources—like ICU beds or ventilators—are scarce.
Dana Hargunani is Chief Medical Officer for OHA. “This is a very difficult situation. We have an exhausted health care workforce doing everything they can to provide the best care. This tool can assist in those specific situations if a patient presents where there’s not enough resources in critical care to meet their needs,” she said.
According to the crisis care tool, no one will be denied medical care based on stereotypes or the presence or absence of disabilities. Care decisions would be based on the likelihood that a patient will survive after hospital discharge.
Hospitals can only invoke crisis standards of care after they’ve exhausted their other options, such as transferring patients elsewhere and canceling non-urgent procedures.
Oregon’s omicron wave is forecasted to peak at the end of January with about 1,600 COVID-19 patients hospitalized. That's more than the highest number of hospitalizations during the delta surge last summer.
To read the state's crisis care standards:
OHA 4019C Crisis Care Tool, Oregon (state.or.us)
