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As the COVID-19 epidemic exploded, many hospitals began creating triage policies to prepare for the possibility of having to ration ventilators. Between March 19 and March 30, 2020, researchers asked the 91 members of the Association of Bioethics Program Directors if their affiliated hospitals had ventilator triage policies; respondents were asked to send those policies to the researchers for comparative analysis.
Sixty-seven directors responded. Half the hospitals did not yet have policies (or were currently developing them), and 7 hospitals could not share their policies, leaving 26 for analysis. Several hospitals (from New York and Washington State) used statewide policies. Although virtually all policies considered “benefit” in their rat…