Crisis standards active for 20 Alaska health care facilities
By Annie Berman
Updated: 15 hours ago
Published: 20 hours ago
Following weeks of rising COVID-19 case counts and a tide of hospitalizations that have strained hospitals around the state, 20 health care facilities in Alaska are now operating under crisis standards of care.
The shift to crisis standards is often seen as a worst-case scenario. They’re meant to provide both guidance and liability protection for health care workers operating with extremely scarce resources.
The 20 hospitals that requested crisis standards make up a majority of Alaska’s 31 health care facilities (a total that includes hospitals and nursing homes), and they cover nearly every region of the state — on the road system and off, from Southeast to Northwest Alaska to Bristol Bay and all along the Railbelt.
Heidi Hedberg, director of the state Division of Public Health, said in an interview Saturday that the move to crisis standards is a sign that hospitals are getting closer to having to make extremely difficult decisions about patient care ...
https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2021/10/02/crisis-standards-of-care-are-now-active-for-20-health-care-facilities-across-alaska/
