Download This PaperThe Optimization of Ventilator Allocation for Maximizing Pandemic Survivability Rates
6 Pages Posted: 1 May 2020
Date Written: April 25, 2020
Abstract
When the demand for ventilators is expected to exceed the available ventilator capacity, physicians will be forced to decide which patients get a ventilator right away and under high stress situations. Although difficult to criticize the decision-making process of the medical staff under such situations, this process based on individual physicians’ own experience and/or intuition is sub-optimal possibly due to lack of consistency, transparency, fairness and among others. Allocation of scarce ventilators in this fashion may not be able to maximize benefits produced by scarce resources defined by Emanuel et al. (2020) as “saving the most individual lives or as saving the most life-years by giving priority to patients likely to survive longest after treatment”, which is of the highest priority among six recommendations for allocating absolutely scarce medical resources in a COVID-19 pandemic (Emanuel et al., 2020, p.3). This is because ventilators could be potentially given to individuals with low odds of survival even with treatment instead of those who can benefit most from treatment and are likely to survive with treatment. This sub-optimal allocation can result in unnecessary deaths. Hence, this paper provides a methodology to optimize resource allocation when facing an acute shortage of ventilators caused by a pandemic such as COVID-19. The paper proposes a solution to predict the utility of scarce ventilators by examining the survival propensity of any patient needing a ventilator so that the ventilators can be best allocated to reduce mortality rates. The predicted mortality of a given patient and the use of the prediction as a recommendation for the use of ventilators could help determine, very quickly, if this precious resource is being allocated to patients in the most effective manner and could also provide the best and objective care. Ultimately, the optimal allocation of scarce ventilators based on a data driven approach can contribute to reducing the overall mortality rate of patients.
Note: Funding: No specific funding source has been received.
Conflict of Interest: The authors declare no competing interests.
Keywords: COVID-19,ventilator, pandemic
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