Public Health Emergencies and Legal Standards of Care—Reply

James G. Hodge Jr., JD, LLM; Brooke Courtney, JD, MPH 

Journal of the American Medical Association. 2010;303(18):1811-1812.
  

In Reply: Mr Bhattacharya raises ethical and liability concerns with our Commentary on the legal standard of care during crisis situations. We agree with the quintessential value of ethics in developing and implementing a crisis standard of care. Our concept of a legal standard of care in emergencies builds on the comprehensive work of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee,¹ which explicitly noted the role of ethics in crisis care planning and response efforts. 

In developing its strategy for allocating ventilators in emergencies, the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law acknowledged "ethics cannot be set aside during a public health disaster."² Bhattacharya takes specific aim at the task force's conclusion that ventilators may ethically be withdrawn or withheld from patients with little chance to survive in emergencies to benefit those with a higher likelihood of survival.² He proposes that other criteria may be reasonable, including allocations...
  

Note: Full article available on publisher's website; subscription required.