Using Two Statewide Medical Operations Coordination Centers to Load Balance in Pediatric Hospitals During a Severe Respiratory Surge in the United States.

OBJECTIVES: Report on the use of two statewide Medical Operations Coordination Centers (MOCCs) to manage a rapid surge in pediatric acute and critical care patient needs. DESIGN: Brief report. SETTING: The states of Washington and Oregon during the pediatric respiratory surge in November 2022/December 2022 which overwhelmed existing pediatric acute and critical care hospital capacity. PATIENTS: Pediatric patients requiring hospitalization in Washington and Oregon. INTERVENTIONS: Adaptations to the use of two existing statewide MOCCs to provide pediatric patient load balancing through surveillance, modifications of existing referral agreements, coordinated expansion of resources, activation of regional crisis standards of care, and integration of pediatric critical care physicians from Harborview Medical Center as subject matter experts (SMEs). MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: The Washington and Oregon MOCCs managed 183 pediatric requests from hospitals unable to transfer pediatric patients between November 1, 2022, and December 14, 2022. Sixteen percent of requests were for children younger than 3 months and 37% were for children between 3 months and 1 year; most had acute viral respiratory disease. Requests for children older than 13 years old were primarily intentional drug ingestions. Fifty-eight percent were for critically ill children and 17% originated from critical access hospitals. Washington's SMEs were utilized in nearly a quarter of cases with the disposition changing in 38% of these. CONCLUSIONS: Washington and Oregon statewide MOCCs have leveraged centralized coordination to effectively load balance a surge in pediatric patients which has overwhelmed existing pediatric hospital resources. Centralized coordination and surveillance informed pediatric hospitals and policy makers of unmet clinical needs and facilitated rapid expansion of clinical capacity and modifications to referral processes. Integration of pediatric SMEs enabled efficient triage of these resources. MOCCs provide an adaptable centralized resource for addressing surge and have been effective in managing overwhelmed pediatric hospital resources in Washington and Oregon.

Perspectives of Triage Team Members Participating in Statewide Triage Simulations for Scarce Resource Allocation During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Washington State.

Importance: The COVID-19 pandemic prompted health care institutions worldwide to develop plans for allocation of scarce resources in crisis capacity settings. These plans frequently rely on rapid deployment of institutional triage teams that would be responsible for prioritizing patients to receive scarce resources; however, little is known about how these teams function or how to support team members participating in this unique task. Objective: To identify themes illuminating triage team members' perspectives and experiences pertaining to the triage process. Design, Setting, and Participants: This qualitative study was conducted using inductive thematic analysis of observations of Washington state triage team simulations and semistructured interviews with participants during the COVID-19 pandemic from December 2020 to February 2021. Participants included clinician and ethicist triage team members. Data were analyzed from December 2020 through November 2021. Main Outcomes and Measures: Emergent themes describing the triage process and experience of triage team members. Results: Among 41 triage team members (mean [SD] age, 50.3 [11.4] years; 21 [51.2%] women) who participated in 12 simulations and 21 follow-up interviews, there were 5 Asian individuals (12.2%) and 35 White individuals (85.4%); most participants worked in urban hospital settings (32 individuals [78.0%]). Three interrelated themes emerged from qualitative analysis: (1) understanding the broader approach to resource allocation: participants strove to understand operational and ethical foundations of the triage process, which was necessary to appreciate their team's specific role; (2) contending with uncertainty: team members could find it difficult or feel irresponsible making consequential decisions based on limited clinical and contextual patient information, and they grappled with ethically ambiguous features of individual cases and of the triage process as a whole; and (3) transforming mindset: participants struggled to disentangle narrow determinations about patients' likelihood of survival to discharge from implicit biases and other ethically relevant factors, such as quality of life. They cited the team's open deliberative process, as well as practice and personal experience with triage as important in helping to reshape their usual cognitive approach to align with this unique task. Conclusions and Relevance: This study found that there were challenges in adapting clinical intuition and training to a distinctive role in the process of scarce resource allocation. These findings suggest that clinical experience, education in ethical and operational foundations of triage, and experiential training, such as triage simulations, may help prepare clinicians for this difficult role.

Patient Information Items Needed to Guide the Allocation of Scarce Life-Sustaining Resources: A Delphi Study of Multidisciplinary Experts.

OBJECTIVE: Plans for allocation of scarce life-sustaining resources during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic often include triage teams, but operational details are lacking, including what patient information is needed to make triage decisions. METHODS: A Delphi study among Washington state disaster preparedness experts was performed to develop a list of patient information items needed for triage team decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts proposed and rated their agreement with candidate information items during asynchronous Delphi rounds. Consensus was defined as ≥80% agreement. Qualitative analysis was used to describe considerations arising in this deliberation. A timed simulation was performed to evaluate feasibility of data collection from the electronic health record. RESULTS: Over 3 asynchronous Delphi rounds, 50 experts reached consensus on 24 patient information items, including patients' age, severe or end-stage comorbidities, the reason for and timing of admission, measures of acute respiratory failure, and clinical trajectory. Experts weighed complex considerations around how information items could support effective prognostication, consistency, accuracy, minimizing bias, and operationalizability of the triage process. Data collection took a median of 227 seconds (interquartile range = 205, 298) per patient. CONCLUSIONS: Experts achieved consensus on patient information items that were necessary and appropriate for informing triage teams during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Functionality of Scarce Healthcare Resource Triage Teams During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Multi-Institutional Simulation Study.

Plans for allocating scarce healthcare resources during the COVID-19 pandemic commonly involve the activation of institutional triage teams. These teams would be responsible for selecting patients who are most likely to survive to be prioritized to receive scarce resources. However, there is little empirical support for this approach. DESIGN: High-fidelity triage-team simulation study. SETTING: Healthcare institutions in Washington state. SUBJECTS: Triage teams, consisting of at least two senior clinicians and a bioethicist. INTERVENTIONS: Participants reviewed a limited amount of deidentified information for a diverse sample of critically ill patients. Teams then assigned each patient to one of five prioritization categories defined by likelihood of survival to hospital discharge. The process was refined based on observation and participant feedback after which a second phase of simulations was conducted. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Feasibility was assessed by the time required for teams to perform their task. Prognostic accuracy was assessed by comparing teams' prediction about likelihood of survival to hospital discharge with real-world discharge outcomes. Agreement between the teams on prognostic categorization was evaluated using kappa statistics. Eleven triage team simulations (eight in phase 1 and three in phase 2) were conducted from December 2020 to February 2021. Overall, teams reviewed a median of 23 patient cases in each session (interquartile range [IQR], 17-29) and spent a median of 102 seconds (IQR, 50-268) per case. The concordance between expected survival and real-world survival to discharge was 71% (IQR, 64-76%). The overall agreement between teams for placement of patients into prognostic categories was moderate (weighted kappa = 0.53). CONCLUSIONS: These findings support the potential feasibility, accuracy, and effectiveness of institutional triage teams informed by a limited set of patient information items as part of a strategy for allocating scarce resources in healthcare emergencies. Additional work is needed to refine the process and adapt it to local contexts.

Western Washington State COVID-19 Experience: Keys to Flattening the Curve and Effective Health System Response.

BACKGROUND: Washington State experienced the first major outbreak of COVID-19 in the US and despite a significant number of cases, has seen a relatively low death rate per million population compared with other states with major outbreaks, and has seen a substantial decrease in the projections for healthcare use, that is, "flattening the curve." This consensus report seeks to identify the key factors contributing to the effective health system disaster response in western WA. METHODS: A multidisciplinary, expert panel including individuals and organizations who were integral to managing the public health and emergency healthcare system response were engaged in a consensus process to identify the key themes and lessons learned and develop recommendations for ongoing management of the COVID-19 pandemic. RESULTS: Six key themes were identified, including early communication and coordination among stakeholders; regional coordination of the healthcare system response; rapid development and access to viral testing; proactive management of long-term care and skilled nursing facilities; proactive management of vulnerable populations; and effective physical distancing in the community. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the lessons learned in each of the areas identified by the panel, 11 recommendations are provided to support the healthcare system disaster response in managing future outbreaks.