Who Gets the Ventilator? (Ep. 413)

Who Gets the Ventilator? (Ep. 413)

If, for instance, you're an economist, you think about the most efficient ways to allocate scarce resources.. But if you're a frontline healthcare worker, you may think it's only fair to balance efficiency with some sense of reciprocity.. A ventilator, as you likely know, is a piece of hospital equipment that can help keep alive someone with respiratory failure.. Pathak and some colleagues started reading different states' guidelines for how to prioritize ventilators in a potential shortage.. Today on Freakonomics Radio: we'll speak with a medical ethicist about healthcare rationing.. Zeke EMANUEL: First-come, first-served is the absolute worst principle you can think of in this situation.. And if you think about the numbers from Italy, about ten to 20 percent of those hospitalized require a ventilator.. In New York State , for instance, about 85 percent of ventilators are typically in use during normal conditions.. The purchasing of ventilators, like most other expensive medical equipment, is often left to individual hospital systems.. Capacity varies from hospital to hospital.. The idea of outright rationing medical resources may sound alien in the U.S., but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened.. And I thought that plan was unethical because that plan said,