Several advocacy groups filed the complaint July 17, claiming the state’s crisis standards of care and a pandemic-related addendum discriminated against older adults, people of color and people with disabilities. The protocols are intended to help healthcare organizations ration care and resources to patients based on various factors, including their likelihood of survival.
In the complaint, the advocacy groups said the original protocols made it possible for some people with disabilities to be “erroneously perceived as having a shorter life expectancy.” The updated guidelines prohibit the use of a patient’s long-term life expectancy as a factor in resource allocation, among other revisions.
“We are pleased to have worked collaboratively with our advocacy partners and the OCR to ensure the language represents the true intent of our healthcare workers, making very difficult decisions during the pandemic without discriminating against any patient,” Cara Christ, MD, director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, said in a May 25 statement cited by AZCentral.
Dr. Christ said the state authorized hospitals to use crisis standards of care last June. While some hospitals got close to using them during the summer COVID-19 surge, none did, she said.
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