Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update United for a Barrier-Free Society for All People with Disabilities
Web: https://www.aodaalliance.org Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com Twitter: @aodaalliance Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aodaalliance/
January 26, 2021
SUMMARY
We are deeply concerned that under the Ford Government’s January 13, 2021 triage protocol each frontline doctor would be a law unto themselves when deciding which patients to refuse life-saving critical care. This would happen if critical care must be rationed because the COVID-19 pandemic overloads Ontario hospitals. On January 18, 2021, we made that secret protocol public and wrote the Ford Government to strongly object to it. Ontario’s NDP has called for it to be rescinded.
In this Update we focus on one powerful and very disturbing illustration of how doctors would wrongly become a law unto themselves. They would too often be able to consciously or unconsciously bring to bear their own personal and subjective preferences when deciding which patients they will deny life-saving critical care. The January 13, 2021 triage protocol which was secretly sent to Ontario hospitals gives no due process or procedural fairness to a patient who needs life-saving critical care, but whom a doctor might refuse critical care.
This protocol would only go into effect if the Government-appointed Ontario Critical Care COVID Command Centre decides that Ontario hospitals have no more room and staff to handle all the patients who need critical care. In that event, the January 13, 2021 triage protocol requires that critical care be rationed or triaged. Some patients needing that care will be refused it. It will be doctors who make that life and death decision, according to the January 13, 2021 triage protocol. We believe that doctors do not want to be put in that awful position, and won’t want to be a law unto themselves. However, that is where the Ford Government is now allowing them to be positioned.
Below we explain this due process issue and then set out the paper trail that proves beyond doubt that our concerns are fully justified. We alerted Ontario’s Health Minister Christine Elliott of these concerns within days of our getting our hands on the January 13, 2021 triage protocol, writing as follows in the AODA Alliance’s January 18, 2021 letter to the Minister:
Under this protocol, the patient whose life is at stake is in effect treated as a passive body lying on a gurney, over whom doctors will deliberate, make decisions, and then communicate the good or bad news (offering emotional support if the news is bad). There is no opportunity for the patient or their supporters to have input into the assessment.
For more background on this issue, check out:
1. The new January 13, 2021 triage protocol which the AODA Alliance received, and is now making public, and has asked the Ford Government to verify. We have only acquired this in PDF format, which lacks proper accessibility. We gather some others in the community now have this document as well.
2. The AODA Alliance’s January 18, 2021 news release on the January 13, 2021 triage protocol.
3. The panel on critical care triage, including AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky, on the January 13, 2021 edition of TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin.
4. The Government’s earlier external advisory Bioethics Table’s September 11, 2020 draft critical care triage protocol, finally revealed last month.
5. The AODA Alliance website’s health care web page, detailing its efforts to tear down barriers in the health care system facing patients with disabilities, and our COVID-19 page, detailing our efforts to address the needs of people with disabilities during the COVID-19 crisis.
MORE DETAILS
1. The Ford Government’s Denial of Due Process to Patients At Risk of Dying Due to a Refusal of Critical Medical Care, If Triage Becomes Necessary
Here is a full explanation of this issue. What do we mean by due process or procedural fairness? When a decision is going to be made that could harm your basic rights, you should be told about it in advance. You should be told why. You should be given a chance to be heard on the question, to present information that can help you get a decision in your favour. If the decision goes against you, you should have a chance to appeal it.
This due process all helps make the decision a fair one and an accurate one. This due process is especially important when the right at stake is the very right to live. That is the right at stake for a patient needing critical care if there is to be critical care triage.
The January 13, 2021 triage protocol does not give a patient or their family any right to be heard or have input into a decision over critical care triage. It gives them no right of appeal if the doctors decide to refuse them the critical care they need. It requires the doctors to give the triaged patient the bad news and to arrange for them to get some medical care, short of the critical care they need to survive. At most, it only requires doctors to explain at least some of the triage process to the patient at risk.
Making due process even more important here, the January 13, 2021 triage protocol specifically directs doctors to use the Clinical Frailty Scale to assess some patients’ eligibility for critical care, if triage is taking place. Disability community advocates have called for that Scale not to be used, because it flagrantly discriminates based on disability. The Ontario Human Rights Commission has also called for that Scale not to be used. Yet the Ontario Government’s Bioethics Table and Ontario Critical Care COVID Command Centre have ignored that, and pressed ahead with the use of that Scale.
That Clinical Frailty Scale requires a doctor to rate whether the patient can perform a list of activities of daily living without assistance, namely dressing, bathing, eating, walking, getting in and out of bed, using the telephone, going shopping, preparing meals, doing housework, taking medication, or handling their own finances. The Clinical Frailty Scale was not designed to be used to decide who lives and who dies during critical care triage.
Even if the Clinical Frailty Scale were not disability discriminatory, a patient, whose life can depend in part on their score, should have a chance to have a say in whether they can do those activities of daily living. They and their family will know much more about this than an emergency room doctor who has never before met them. The same might also be said for at least some other factors that a doctor decides to use when deciding whether to refuse critical care for a patient who needs it.
An appeal from a decision refusing critical care to a patient who needs it is also an important due process safeguard to help protect patients. It helps ensure that doctors, making triage decisions, are considering the right factors and are not taking into account improper factors. Without an appeal, frontline triage doctors and the administrators who oversee them have no imminent check on their decisions. A lawsuit fought out years later by the patient’s family will come too late to save a life.
The need for proper due process for a patient whose life is at stake is even more pressing, since the head of a Toronto hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, Dr. Michael Warner, the Medical Director of Critical Care at Toronto’s Michael Garron Hospital, has said that these triage decisions under the January 13, 2021 triage protocol will be difficult, and may well involve the doctor making guesstimates and improvising. He explained that doctors have no experience with making such decisions. He told this to the CBC’s January 23, 2021 edition of White Coat Black Art. We included Dr. Warner’s quotations in the January 25, 2021 AODA Alliance Update.
How can all this due process be done in the context of an overloaded hospital system in the middle of a raging pandemic? The Ford Government-appointed Bioethics Table asked us that very question last summer. After extensive research, we put forward practical and constructive recommendations designed for that very context fully five months ago. We set them out below.
This package of due process protections is not included in the January 13, 2021 triage protocol with the exception of a patient being told about at least some of the triage process to which they may be subjected. There has been no explanation by the Ford Government or its Ontario Critical Care COVID Command Centre (which approved the January 13, 2021 triage protocol) or by the advisory Bioethics Table of why these important due process protections have been left out.
There is no reason given for this denial of due process especially when the January 13, 2021 triage protocol lists procedural fairness as a feature that a critical care triage protocol should include. The Government and its Ontario Critical Care COVID Command Centre and Bioethics Table have held no public discussions of this due process issue. These decisions are all being made behind closed doors, by unidentified people. This is not the openness, transparency and public accountability that the Ford Government promised Ontarians. It certainly does not protect the most vulnerable, which Ontarians were promised by Premier Ford.
The January 13, 2021 triage protocol was evidently written by doctors. The Government claims that it was written by experts for experts. Yet the medical profession, which plays a vital role during this pandemic, has no training in or expertise in due process, human rights, or fundamental constitutional rights. There is something very wrong with this picture.
We here again make public the paper trail that shows this palpable failure by the Ford Government and those to whom it has delegated responsibility to handle this issue behind closed doors. We set out key parts of that paper trail below. There is no doubt more secret documentation on point in the hands of the Government and its Bioethics Table and Ontario Critical Care COVID Command Centre:
1. Last summer, the Bioethics Table shared with the AODA Alliance and some other disability advocates an earlier revised draft of a triage protocol, one which precedes its later September 11, 2020 recommendations. We posted that draft protocol online on July 16, 2020. We know it is hard to keep all these drafts straight.
That earlier draft triage protocol included no due process for patients whatsoever. Under it, the patient and their family had no right to be heard by those deciding the patient’s fate. There was no assurance that the family can get their family doctor to chime in and add their voice to the discussion. There was no right of appeal to anyone else in the hospital.
There was no duty on the doctors or hospitals to give the patient or their family basic rights advice. This was so even though the revised draft medical triage protocol gives superficial and inadequate lip service to due process concerns, stating:
Due process considerations (e.g., transparency about reasons for triage decisions) are especially important in this context. Hospitals should plan for how they might proactively prepare patients and families for possible outcomes of the triage process as well as how they would respond transparently and compassionately to patient or family concerns should these arise.
Appendix E to that earlier revised draft protocol sets out a sample of what a doctor might tell a patient and their family if it has been decided to refuse them a needed ventilator due to a ventilator shortage. That seriously deficient text gave the patient and family no rights advice or other basic information of what they can do if they wish to dispute the decision and to have it reconsidered.
That earlier draft Medical triage protocol in substance wrongly and summarily rejected the idea of any appeal, stating:
critically ill patients must be assessed rapidly in a dynamic and over-taxed environment, a formal process for patients and families to appeal triage decisions may not be feasible or appropriate (e.g., if critical care is contrary to the patient’s wishes).
2. During our summer virtual meetings with the Government’s Bioethics Table, we were asked to give ideas on what kinds of due process should be included in the triage protocol, that are sensitive to the time pressures during such triage. We did so in our August 30, 2020 written submission to the Bioethics Table. We set the relevant part of those submissions out below. They were posted on line last summer, and shared with the Ford Government and not just its Bioethics Table.
3. After that, the Bioethics Table included some, but not all of our due process recommendations in its September 11, 2020 report to the Ford Government. The Government kept that report secret for three months, forcing us to vigourously advocate for its public release. We set out the relevant parts of that report below that address due process for patients.
4. On November 13, 2020, the Government or its Ontario Critical Care COVID Command Centre sent a secret new draft triage protocol to Ontario hospitals. We have not seen it. However, we know from a later undated letter from Dr. Andrew Baker, a member of the Ontario Critical Care COVID Command Centre, to Ontario hospitals that that draft protocol included some sort of right of appeal within the health care system for triage patients who are refused critical care they need. That letter listed the following as some of the things that have been removed from the draft protocol that was earlier circulated to hospitals on November 13, 2020:
1. Removal of the requirement of a triage team that makes ICU bed allocation decisions; 2. Removal of reference to an external appeals committee;
5. We have learned that the Bioethics Table later delivered a secret revised report to the Government on critical care triage on January 12, 2021. We do not know what it said about due process for patients or anything else.
6. Next, the January 13, 2021 triage protocol was secretly sent to all hospitals by or on behalf of the Ford Government. It did not include the package of due process rights for patients facing critical care triage that we have asked for and that the Bioethics Table earlier recommended in its September 11, 2020 report, except for advising patients about at least some of the triage process that the January 13, 2021 triage protocol mandates (one in which the patient has no say). We do not know who decided to rip out further due process from the protocol, or who they consulted, or why they decided to do this.
2. What the AODA Alliance Told the Government-Appointed External and Advisory Bioethics Table on August 30, 2020
The AODA Alliance’s August 30, 2020 written submissions to the Government’s Bioethics Table included:
The First Issue: The Revised Draft Triage Protocol is Seriously Lacking in Due Process for All Patients
1. The Bottom Line
The critical medical triage protocol needs to be revised to provide strong, mandatory, reliable due process protections that ensure fair and accurate decisions in triage cases. This is especially important since the decision of whether a patient will be given critical care is a life and death decision. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees in section 7 the right to life, and the right not to be deprived of one’s life except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice. Due process must be the most rigourous when the right to life is at stake.
2. The Rule of Law and the Need for Any Triage Protocol to Be Enacted in Law
As a vital starting point, any critical care triage protocol, including the due process safeguards in it, should be enacted in a law. Such a protocol is specifically aimed at a situation where a patient could be denied critical medical care that they need, despite the fact that they need it. It is a basic aspect of the rule of law that a person’s fundamental rights, such as the right to life, cannot be taken away without the clear authority of law.
Given this issue’s importance, any critical care triage protocol and any legislation that would enact or mandate it should be carefully screened in advance of its enactment by Government’s lawyers to ensure that it is fully lawful and constitutional. The Government has known of the COVID-19 pandemic for over five months. It has had ample time to take these steps. Moreover, The Government has shown that it is prepared to act very swiftly to enact other significant emergency measures to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. The Government should be capable of doing so in this medical critical care triage context as well.
Any law enacted in this context must fully comply with the Charter of Rights and the Ontario Human Rights Code. Among other things, the standard that it mandates for making a decision over who will be denied life-saving critical care that they medically need must be sufficiently clear and not vague.
3. Right to Early Notice
As part of due process, a patient and their family should be given notice as early as possible in advance that they may be subjected to triage for critical care. This should include a full explanation of such things as what critical care is, what medical triage is, what the steps of the triage process include, what rights the patient has to input into the process, what appeals are available from an adverse triage decision, and whom the patient and their family could consult for assistance in this process. This rights advice and information should be readily available in a wide range of languages.
4. Right to Disability Accommodation in the Triage Process
If a person with disabilities, either a patient or a member of their family/support people, needs an accommodation to enable them to fully participate in this due process, it is important to ensure that their accommodation needs are promptly and fully met. For example, relevant printed material should be readily available in accessible alternate formats. Electronic documents should be provided in an accessible format where needed, such as an accessible html or MS Word document. PDF does not fulfil this need. Sign Language and other communication supports should be available for those needing them to take part in this process. Patients and their families should be told as soon as possible that these accommodations and supports are available on request.
5. Who Should Make the Triage Decision
The triage protocol assumes that this decision over who, among those who need it, should get critical care is a medical decision, and as such, it should automatically be made by physicians. However, that should not be assumed.
It can be argued instead that the decision is not a medical decision, or an exclusively medical decision, even though it relates to medical services. It is a decision over how to ration publicly funded critical medical care in circumstances where there is not enough to go around. It is a decision that should be made by those who are publicly accountable for their decision on how to allocate a scarce life-saving public service or resource.
However, if, despite this serious concern, it were decided to proceed with a medical model for this triage, the following due process is proposed. This due process is proposed without accepting that such a decision should be left at all or exclusively to physicians or other health care professionals.
The hospital team that makes the triage decision should include more than one or two doctors. The Government or Bioethics Table should present a range of options for the Government to consider adopting, listing the advantages and disadvantages of each option, on which public input can be obtained. One option to consider is a committee created by the institution comprised of doctors with expertise in relevant areas such as intensive care or palliative care, nurses, social workers, and ethicists (Sprung, Charles L, et al. Adult ICU Triage During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: Who Will Live and Who Will Die? Recommendations to Improve Survival. US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, NCBI, 6 May 2020).
Sufficient safeguards must be in place and monitored to ensure that the persons on the triage team taking part in the triage assessment and decision have no actual or perceived conflict of interest. For example, they should have no personal relationship with the patient or with any of the other patients who are subject to a triage decision. Those making the decision should have personally met the patient, and not simply been briefed by other members of the triage team.
The members of the team taking part in the triage assessment and decision should be required to have recently completed sufficient designated training in the use of the assessment tool, in the assessment due process requirements, and in applicable human rights principles and the requirement to conduct bias-free and barrier-free assessments that do not discriminate against patients with disabilities. This should not be purely passive online training (where a participant simply reads text or watches lectures and then clicks that they did so).
6. Right to Input Into Triage Decision
As part of the critical care triage assessment process, the patient and their family/support people should be given a full and fair opportunity to give the assessment team information on the patient as it relates to the triage assessment criteria, before any critical care triage decision is made. This should include, among other things, the opportunity to present input from others, such as the patient’s personal physician or other support people.
If a patient that is to be considered for possible critical care triage appears to have no substitute decision-maker on the scene with them, and appears to be incapable of managing their health care decisions, the hospital should immediately notify the Public Guardian and Trustee’s office so that that office can consider taking part in the medical triage process on the patient’s behalf, if needed.
7. Right to Appeal a Denial of Needed Critical Care
If a triage decision is made to refuse critical care to a patient who needs critical care, the senior member of the triage team should tell the patient about the decision and the reasons for it, immediately or as quickly as possible. The patient and their family/support people should be given rights advice about the ways for the patient or their family to appeal or dispute the decision. This rights advice should also be quickly provided to the patient and their family in writing, written in plain language, in documents provided in an accessible format where needed.
Where a patient is denied needed critical care due to a triage decision, that decision should be re-assessed each 24 hours after this denial (Sprung, Charles L, et al. Adult ICU Triage During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: Who Will Live and Who Will Die? Recommendations to Improve Survival. US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, NCBI, 6 May 2020).
If any Ontario emergency orders now suspend due process protections for hospital patients such as opportunities to seek appeals or reviews of refusals of treatment, any such suspension of due process should be lifted. Where a patient who needs critical care is denied it due to a triage decision, the patient and their family should have a right to a swift appeal process within the health care system, with an ultimate option of an appeal to court or an appropriate independent tribunal with the needed expertise and expeditious procedures. This appeal process must be swift due to the fact that the patient needs critical care for a life-threatening condition, and because the health care facility is under incredible work pressure due to the pandemic crisis.
The AODA Alliance has not had the time and capacity to obtain and compare a wide range of hospital appeal protocols. We propose that the appeal process should include these features:
a) Information about the availability of an appeal and how to launch an appeal should be widely available and well publicized, within a hospital.
b) The appeal process must be very fast.
c) The appeal process should rapidly get right to the substantive critical care issues, without being distracted by extraneous considerations. This is needed to minimize the time that the process takes and the need to enable medical staff to spend their time treating patients.
d) A patient or their family/support people should be able to quickly and easily launch an appeal by sending in an email, placing a phone call, or verbally advising a person in charge e.g. a charge nurse in an emergency room. Whoever receives the written or oral notification that the appeal is being launched should be required to immediately communicate it to a central hub at the hospital.
e) To speed up this process, to the extent possible, virtual meetings should be used to conduct the parts of the appeal that do not require in-person contact.
f) On an appeal being launched, a hospital staff person who had no involvement in the triage decision should immediately be assigned to manage the appeal process, and to be the patient/family’s/support people’s primary contact.
g) Immediately upon launching an appeal, an independent person either within the hospital or on stand-by at Ontario Health should review the initial triage team’s documentation of their triage decision. If the documentation reveals any possible errors, the triage team that made the decision should be required to reconsider its decision afresh.
h) If, after that review, the triage team sticks by its decision to deny critical care to the patient, a second triage team, either in the hospital or elsewhere, should be appointed to immediately perform an independent clinical care triage assessment of the patient’s case. The second triage team should have the same required qualifications and training on the triage process as did the first triage team. The second triage team should, of course, include no members from the first triage team.
i) The second triage team should start the assessment from scratch, and should not be provided any of the assessment decision ratings or deliberations of the first triage team. The members of the second triage team should not communicate about this case with members of the first triage team before or while making their assessment.
j) The patient should get the benefit of the most favourable assessment, as between the first and second triage teams. If, after this second team’s assessment, the patient is still denied critical care, they should have an opportunity to have a rapid appeal/review by an independent court or tribunal. New legislation or regulations may be needed to spell this out. We do not have time to specify to whom this appeal should go. One option worth considering is the Consent and Capacity Board (CCB). Another option to consider is a judge of the Superior Court of Justice. A short list of judges from that court could be designated to be on stand-by for cases coming to them, if it is decided that a judge should hear these cases.
k) Whether this final appeal is to a judge or to the CCB or some other body, to expedite this process, a panel of qualified lawyer-mediators should be designated to be on standby to assist that judge or tribunal e.g. to quickly gather, organize and disclose to the parties and the appeal judge or tribunal all the relevant information from the hospital and the two triage teams that had reviewed the case. Because such appeals must happen extremely quickly, it would be important for the patient, family/support people and hospital to have that emergency assistance.
l) To ensure that the playing field is level for all patients, the Government should direct that Legal Aid Ontario is required to provide free legal representation to any patient invoking this appeal process after being denied critical care. A panel of Legal Aid-funded lawyers should be available on stand-by for emergency engagement if needed.
8. Accountability for Triage Decisions
At each stage of the medical triage process, the triage team should be required to keep detailed contemporaneous records of their entire triage process including any triage assessments. These cases should be reported weekly for review by the hospital’s senior management and ethics committee, and should be reported weekly to the Ministry of Health. These should also be made public on a weekly basis as aggregated information that does not disclose patient identities. This is all needed to ensure that hospital administration and the Government are kept up-to-date on how the clinical care triage process is operating on the front lines, so that corrective action can be quickly ordered where needed.
For proper public accountability, during any period when a critical care triage protocol is in effect, the Ministry of Health should make public, on a weekly basis, information on a province-wide, municipality and hospital-by-hospital basis, about cases where critical care has been denied due to triage decisions, such as:
a) the number of cases and related medical decisions;
b) key demographic data such as racialized and disability status; and
c) number of decisions appealed and whether the appeal resulted in a refusal or offer of critical care.
3. What the Government’s Bioethics Table Subsequently Recommended in Its September 11, 2020 Report to the Ford Government
The Government-appointed Bioethics Table included the following in its September 11, 2020 report to the Ford Government:
Where a patient or their substitute decision-maker disagrees with the proposed treatment plan based on the critical care triage assessment the critical care triage team should reiterate and make clear to the patient or their substitute decision-maker that an appeals process exists, and should explain the process for making an appeal. All available supports and accommodations should be made available to the patient and/or their substitute decision-maker.
Due process and procedural fairness require that patients or their substitute decision-makers have an opportunity to appeal individual critical care triage decisions in a major surge. An appeals process should therefore be implemented to hear and adjudicate appeals made by patients or their substitute decision-makers with respect to triage decisions where patients are not prioritized for/admitted to critical care or where life-sustaining measures are proposed to be withdrawn because they are no longer benefitting from critical care resources or no longer meet prioritization criteria due to continued surge in demand. Because the former scenario is more time-sensitive, separate appeals processes may be required in order to facilitate rapid hearing of appeals in these cases.
Appeals have important legal implications, and processes of appeals must be developed such that they work within the multiple contexts of Ontario’s health system. Consequently, we recommend that health system stakeholders be engaged to further develop a plan for appeals. With that said, we believe that elements of this appeals process should include the following:
The appeals process should be clear and easy for a lay person to trigger and conduct.
Patient advocates, including a rights advisor or a member of the patient’s circle of care, should be able to initiate an appeal on behalf of a patient with the patient or their substitute decision-maker’s consent.
The critical care triage team should explain the grounds for the critical care triage assessment decision that was made. They should also consider reassessing the patient at regular intervals.
Appeals should immediately be brought to a Critical Care Triage Appeals Committee that is independent of the critical care triage team and of the patient’s care.
Critical Care Triage Appeals Committees should be established at a regional or provincial, rather than institutional, level. A regional model is capable of enhancing consistency across hospitals, bridges capacity gaps (e.g., small vs. large hospitals), and draws from a larger pool of relevant expertise and perspectives. All Critical Care Triage Appeals Committees should be made up of at least five individuals and include the perspectives of those with expertise in critical care, fair processes, and members of the community. The inclusion of perspectives from Black and other racialized populations, Indigenous populations, and persons with disabilities should exist across all members of Critical Care Triage Appeals Committees. Three Critical Care Triage Appeals Committee members should be required for a quorum to render a decision, using a simple majority vote. The process should proceed by telephone, virtually, or in person, and the outcome should be promptly communicated verbally and in writing to whomever brought the appeal.
The appeals process must occur quickly enough that it does not create any delay in treatment or further harm the patient (in the case of initial triage decisions) or patients who are in the queue for scarce critical care resources currently being used by the patient who is the subject of the appeal (in the case of triage decisions involving the withdrawal of life-sustaining measures).
Periodically, the Critical Care Triage Appeals Committee should retrospectively evaluate whether the review process is consistent with effective, fair, and timely application of the allocation framework.
4. What Is in the January 13, 2021 triage protocol
Note: the January 13, 2021 triage protocol includes no patient appeal from an adverse triage decision that endangers their life. The January 13, 2021 triage protocol makes one reference to due process. It states:
An emergency standard of care should be undergirded by mechanisms of due process that minimize impairment of rights as much as possible. A clear, transparent, accountable system, applied across all patients, hospitals and regions, is the optimal way to support fair and evidence- based decisions, protect human rights and to minimize the risk of discrimination and unconscious bias negatively impacting the care of vulnerable populations (such as people with disabilities, people who are racialized and people with pre-existing health conditions). It is also the best way to minimize moral injury and burnout amongst healthcare professionals and leaders burdened with the responsibility of triage.
In another context, the January 13, 2021 triage protocol emphasizes the importance of procedural fairness. We note that due process is another way of saying procedural fairness. The January 13, 2021 triage protocol states:
In the context of a major surge, there may be occasions where there is little clinical evidence to guide triage decisions (i.e. to distinguish between multiple critically ill patients) on the basis of predicted short term mortality, or there are irreconcilable differences of opinion between physicians regarding a patient’s eligibility for critical care at a particular level.
In such contexts of uncertainty, triage decisions must appeal to procedural fairness.
Randomization offers a procedurally fair process of decision-making that mitigates against the potential of explicit or unconscious bias and demonstrates the value of humility when uncertainty is high. Random selection also has other advantages as a decision-making strategy in the context of an overwhelming surge of critically ill patients: