Our frontline caregivers – nurses, physicians, emergency room staff, and many others – who have bravely given so much to provide care throughout the pandemic need our gratitude and support, not lawsuits and depositions.
Today, as we hopefully begin to emerge from the darkest days of the pandemic, hospitals and their staff need meaningful recognition of their essential leadership role in pandemic response. Key to that recognition is protection from lawsuits that seek to take advantage of the ever-changing nature of the crisis.
While it feels at times as if the pandemic has been with us forever, it was just under 11 months ago that the first coronavirus case was diagnosed in Florida. Since then, new information and understanding have emerged almost on a weekly basis as everyone – from clinicians to scientists – learn more about the virus. For example, the list of symptoms to identify potential COVID-19 cases has changed significantly since March. Testing initially was not readily available; PPE and supplies were extremely limited; and for the first several months, lab results took considerable time to turn around.
Clinical and operational guidance also evolved throughout the pandemic. Federal agencies’ expectations and directives changed repeatedly and were updated quickly to support the latest understanding of the virus – how it is transmitted, its symptomology, its long-term effects, and how to combat it.
For hospitals and their health care staff, that learning and adaptation have taken place in real time with real patients under very real constraints and challenging circumstances. Policies, procedures, and practices have had to change quickly in response to new guidance. An April 2020 report from the Office of the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services noted hospitals’ concerns both with staying current with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance and with conflicting guidance from different government and medical authorities, including criteria for testing, determining which elective procedures to delay, use of PPE, and getting supplies from the national stockpile.
Amid these many and rapid changes, however, there is one constant: hospitals’ commitment to delivering the best patient care possible to save lives.
It has become clichéd to talk about hospitals being on the frontlines and their health care staff as heroes. But, it is essential that we not lose sight of the leadership hospitals and their teams have demonstrated throughout this pandemic. Hospitals have been the vanguard of novel, sometimes experimental, treatments for a new highly infectious disease with a multitude of short- and long-term symptoms and lingering side effects that manifest differently in different people. They reconfigured physical spaces and realigned staffing roles and responsibilities to meet the unprecedented demand for care. They took on new roles to help their post-acute and long-term care colleagues care for their vulnerable residents. And, they offered advice based on lessons learned to private businesses and public governments on safe re-opening strategies.
This leadership, resourcefulness, and initiative should be applauded.
Unfortunately, there are some who would exploit the crisis and subject hospitals and their staff to unwarranted litigation. In the upcoming legislative session, Florida’s hospitals will be asking for lawmakers’ help and support by enacting COVID-19-related liability protections to guard against unfounded lawsuits that seek to take advantage of the ever-changing situation.
When the chapter is closed on the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-21, we will have the advantage of hindsight to inform future pandemic responses. Litigation is the wrong path forward to that insight and will only drain precious resources and limit hospitals’ ability to care for their patients and communities. Florida’s hospitals and their employees have given so much to their communities over the last year. We should express our appreciation and support by protecting them from unfounded and protracted legal challenges.
