Guidelines and clinical priority setting during the COVID-19 pandemic – Norwegian doctors’ experiences

In the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, strong measures were taken to avoid anticipated pressure on health care, and this involved new priorities between patient groups and changing working conditions for clinical personnel.

3. oktober 2022

In an article in BMC Health Services Research LEFO's researchers among others have studied how doctors experienced this situation. The focus was their knowledge about and adherence to general and COVID-19 specific guidelines and regulations on priority setting, and whether actual priorities were considered acceptable.

They found that most doctors did not use priority guidelines in this period. However they experienced, that some of their patients were deprioritized, which was considered medically indefensible by many.