ICU triage during a crisis: learning to apply medical and non-medical criteria to patient cases

Suppose that almost all intensive care places (IC places) are occupied during a pandemic, how should healthcare providers make a choice between patients who need an ICU place? Two scripts have been developed in the Netherlands for this purpose, with medical and non-medical rules that teams of healthcare providers must follow when making such a choice (this is called "triage"). In this study, healthcare providers applied these rules to imagined (non-real) patients based on their patient records. This showed that the Dutch rules can be used well. Both healthcare providers and citizens also broadly agree with the content of the rules. In order to apply the rules properly and carefully, it is useful if healthcare providers in triage teams are given an explanation of the rules in advance and practice applying them. That is why e-learning for healthcare providers has been developed as one of the end products of this project. Read more about ethics and health More information about research into corona and COVID-19