American doctors could soon be making the same life-or-death decisions that overwhelmed health care workers in Italy are already facing.
Medical workers stretch a patient into a newly built temporary hospital on March 16 in Rome. Doctors in Italy are making difficult decisions on who should receive care.Andreas Solaro/AFP via Getty Images
As the number of coronavirus cases rises in the U.S., hospitals have a new urgency in revisiting and updating those guidelines. But age is rarely the only factor in such decision making. For example, a 20-year-old will not always get priority over a 60-year-old, especially if that 20-year-old has additional health problems that could mean the 60-year-old is likely to live longer anyway. Scoring systems can disadvantage older patients because as people age they become more susceptible to disease, which can hurt their clinical scores.
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