- TypeConference
- Location Online, Wien, Austria
- Date 06-03-2021 - 07-03-2021
Medical/Healthcare/Hospital
This conference brings together academics, researchers, educators and others from a wide variety of fields, for a collaborative, multidisciplinary and humanistic exploration of these question, challenges and issues in healthcare and healthcare management. Themes and issues for the conference include, but are not limited to:
Stream A: End-of-life care
The pandemic has highlighted a dimension of healthcare that has been understood by hospital administrators and policy makers for some time – the complex administrative issues healthcare systems and practitioners face because of limited resources and economic disparities. In the current pandemic, what systems have been put into place to flatten the curve, mitigating the spread of disease so as to not overwhelm hospital systems? How were principles identified, and operationalised? How is it working, and how is it being evaluated? What are the elements of a system-wide basis for allocating scarce resources such as ICU beds and ventilators?
Stream B: Scarcity and its consequences
The allocation of scarce healthcare resources has ethical, legal and social dimensions. How have these played out, in real situations, globally? To what degree can advance directives and living wills alleviate the pressure on the system in a time of pandemic? Where do ethicists, lawyers and clinicians agree, and where do they disagree? How do these problems interact with politics, finances, and the demands of political correctness? On what grounds have hospitals and clinics decided to prioritise which patients receive which treatments and equipment? What formulae have been developed, to score patients and comorbidities, and to what degree can data extractors contribute to accurate and fair scores? What court and state interventions have occurred and what were their consequences?
Stream C: Resource disparities
On a global scale, social and economic inequity and regional disparities impact the supply and distribution of resources. How have hospital administrators, clinical managers and frontline staff handled shortages of ventilators, masks and PPE? To what degree are these a problem of supply chain, and to what degree do they reflect the critical underfunding of healthcare systems at all levels? What are the issues with recycling, decontamination and re-use? How do front-line staff respond to re-use? What are the ethics of countries buying up international supplies of medicines and supplies? How has the use of controversial medications such as hydroxychloroquine impacted its use for other medical problems?