COVID-19: instruments for
the allocation of mechanical ventilators—a narrative review
by Marcelo José dos Santos, Maristela Santini Martins,
Fabiana Lopes Pereira Santana, Maria Carolina Silvano Pacheco Corrêa Furtado,
Fabiana Cristina Bazana Remédio Miname, Rafael Rodrigo da Silva Pimentel, Ágata
Nunes Brito, Patrick Schneider, Edson Silva dos Santos and Luciane Hupalo da
Silva
Critical Care volume 24,
Article number: 582 (2020) Published: 29
September 2020
After the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be
a pandemic, the elaboration of comprehensive and preventive public policies
became important in order to stop the spread of the disease. However,
insufficient or ineffective measures may have placed health professionals and
services in the position of having to allocate mechanical ventilators. This
study aimed to identify instruments, analyze their structures, and present the
main criteria used in the screening protocols, in order to help the development
of guidelines and policies for the allocation of mechanical ventilators in the
COVID-19 pandemic. The instruments have a low level of scientific evidence,
and, in general, are structured by various clinical, non-clinical, and
tiebreaker criteria that contain ethical aspects. Few instruments included
public participation in their construction or validation. We believe that the
elaboration of these guidelines cannot be restricted to specialists as this
question involves ethical considerations which make the participation of the
population necessary. Finally, we propose seventeen elements that can support
the construction of screening protocols in the COVID-19 pandemic.
No comments:
Post a Comment