Addressing prioritization in healthcare amidst a global pandemic

Abstract

Trade-offs abound in healthcare yet depending on where one stands relative to the stages of a pandemic, choice making may be more or less constrained. During the early stages of COVID-19 when there was much uncertainty, healthcare systems faced greater constraints and focused on the singular criterion of “flattening the curve.” As COVID-19 progressed and the first wave diminished (relatively speaking depending on the jurisdiction), more opportunities presented for making explicit choices between COVID and non-COVID patients. Then, as the second wave surged, again decision makers were more constrained even as more information and greater understanding developed. Moving out of the pandemic to recovery, choice making becomes paramount as there are no set rules to lean back into historical patterns of resource allocation. In fact, the opportunity at hand, when using explicit tools for priority setting based on economic and ethical principles, is significant.

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This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.1177/08404704211002539

Repository URI

https://researchonline.gcu.ac.uk/en/publications/63fc0946-f9db-469e-98bc-67432a2fd4ae