268432 Public Engagement on Crisis Standards of Care

Tuesday, October 30, 2012 : 3:30 PM - 3:50 PM

Umair A. Shah, MD, MPH , Deputy Director, Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services, Houston, TX
Tia Powell, MD , Montefiore-Einstein Center for Bioethics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY
Bruce Altevogt, PhD , Board on Health Sciences Policy, Institute of Medicine - National Academies, Washington, DC
Dan Hanfling, MD , Department of Emergency Medicine, Inova Fairfax Hospital, Falls Church, VA
     
Background/Purpose: The Institute of Medicine's (IOM) Committee on Guidance for Establishing Standards of Care for Use in Disaster Situations original 2009 letter report (Guidance for Establishing Crisis Standards of Care for Use in Disaster Situations—Letter Report) highlighted meaningful public engagement as one of the five key elements of crisis standards of care (CSC) planning. Policy makers should involve the public in a structured dialogue about the implications and likelihood of having to allocate health care delivery and essential vaccines or medicines ethically in the event of a disaster. To facilitate this involvement, the committee developed a public engagement toolkit.

Methods: The committee consulted with technical experts with experience in public engagement event to develop its toolkit and pilot-tested the toolkit in two events in Boston and Lawrence, Massachusetts, respectively.

Results/Outcomes: This resource should support CSC planning efforts by enabling state and local health departments and other interested planners to initiate conversations with the community regarding these difficult issues. The toolkit provides a guide to an array of stakeholders—the sponsor, the lead facilitator, and table facilitators and note takers—as well as a draft agenda, discussion on recruitment techniques, and when in the process of developing CSC plans it is best to engage the public in discussion. The toolkit is meant to be adapted to the experiences and progress of individual communities working toward integrating CSC in their overall disaster response.

Conclusions: Engaging the public is crucial to ensuring CSC are accepted by the public as fair and the process as transparent.

Learning Areas:
Administration, management, leadership
Communication and informatics
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs

Learning Objectives:
•Discuss and demonstrate how state and local governments should engage the public about crisis standards of care.

Keywords: Disasters, Emergency

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am qualified to be an abstract author as I was a member of the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Establishing Crisis Standards of Care for Use in Disaster Situations.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4318.0: Crisis Standards of Care