Professor Valerie Gutmann Koch will be a guest contributor at the HealthLawProf Blog for the month of August. Check back here for more of her guest posts.
By Valerie Gutmann Koch [reposted from HealthLawProf Blog]
In 2014, the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, the state’s bioethics commission, will release its updated Allocation of Ventilators in an Influenza Pandemic, which enunciate a comprehensive clinical and ethical framework to guide distribution of ventilators in the event of a severe public health emergency using objective medical criteria, with the ultimate goal of saving the most lives. These guidelines are the product of seven years of hard work by the Task Force and its staff and were developed by incorporating comments, critiques, feedback, and values from numerous stakeholders. They draw upon the expertise of multiple workgroups and committees with special knowledge in scarce resource allocation, pediatric and neonatal medicine, ethics, law, and policy. The 2014 version of these guidelines will not only include an updated clinical protocol for allocation of ventilators to adults; they will also include first of their kind protocols for allocation of ventilators to two important and previously unaddressed segments of the population: pediatric patients and neonates.
I have had the great fortune to continue serving the Task Force in finalizing these Guidelines. In particular, the brief summary on legal issues from the 2007 draft guidelines has been replaced with a more substantial exploration of the various legal issues that may arise when implementing the clinical protocols for ventilator allocation.
Of primary concern to the Task Force in its deliberations was the effective implementation of the clinical allocation protocols, which could be stymied by health care workers’ reluctance to follow the guidelines due to concerns about liability. The financial, time, and reputational costs of defending a criminal prosecution, civil lawsuit, or professional disciplinary proceeding, as well as conflicting laws and regulations, all may make abiding by the clinical protocols particularly challenging.
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