title: Practical, ethical, and legal challenges underlying crisis standards of care.
abstract: Public health emergencies implicate difficult decisions among medical and emergency first responders about how to allocate essential resources. While various actors have proffered approaches on how to make these tough choices, meaningful guidance on shifting standards of care in major emergencies remained lacking. In March 2012, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released additional guidance to assist facilities and practitioners to address scarce resource allocation through the development of "crisis standards of care" in catastrophes. As discussed in the article, identifying and resolving of complex practical, ethical, and legal challenges underlying real-time implementation of these standards are indispensable to protecting the public's health.
authors.affiliation: Health Law and Ethics, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University, AZ, USA.
authors.forename: James G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Hodge
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hanfling
authors.forename: Tia P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Powell
mesh_terms: D004189:Disaster Planning / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000941:ethics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D015969:National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, U.S., Health and Medicine Division; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011635:Public Health Administration / Q000941:ethics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D040841:Resource Allocation / Q000941:ethics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000592:standards*; D059039:Standard of Care / Q000941:ethics* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D014481:United States