State Distributes ‘Triage Guidelines’ to Allocate Medical Resources If No Other Options Exist

Guidelines call for triage teams to save lives and life-years; Murphy and Persichilli insist no patient would be excluded based on age, race, sex, gender identity and other concerns

By Lilo H. Stainton, NJSpotlight

While there are some signs the impact of the coronavirus may be lessening in New Jersey, state officials have distributed guidelines to help hospitals allocate patient resources if there are widespread shortages of things like ventilators or other critical-care supplies.

State Department of Health commissioner Judith Persichilli said the “triage guidelines” issued Saturday evening would not be activated unless a hospital’s intensive-care capacity was overwhelmed and assistance or supplies could not be provided by another facility in the region.

The document outlines a decision-making framework that a triage team can use to assign a score to patients in need of critical care — whether they have COVID-19 or another condition — based in part on the likelihood of short- and long-term survival. These scores would be used to determine who is allocated resources if there are not enough to go around.

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