Dr. Ivor Douglas:
Yes.
And I think that, for our patients, they may — it may be utterly opaque. The point of this is that crisis standards of care apply, not just to the specific individual cares of COVID patients, but our ability to leverage additional resources, dialysis machines, additional staff and expertise, to bring to the bedside care of all patients.
The key issue about Colorado’s crisis standards of care is that, while there has indeed been an activation, it’s done in a layered fashion. And the most important initial phase of this is the crisis standards around staffing.
What this does is open a channel for us at the federal level to leverage additional FEMA support, for example, additional expertise to do front-line care, supplement services, and, most importantly, allow us to distribute patients in a more rational, balanced fashion within the state and not require a very strict adherence to ratios of certain patients to certain providers.
At the end of the day, we have to preserve our work force. While we’re committed to the care of every patient, we have lost large numbers of highly expert and professional people. It’s true we’re tired, but, at the same time, we have got to be there for tomorrow’s patients as well.
And if we burn through everybody, there is no future and there is no cavalry coming. So we have got to do this in an affordable, careful way.
