Ethical issues in the response to Ebola virus disease in US emergency departments: a position paper of the American College of Emergency Physicians, the Emergency Nurses Association and the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine. J Emerg Nurs 2015 Mar;41(2):e5-e16
Date
03/15/2015Pubmed ID
25770003Pubmed Central ID
PMC7119323DOI
10.1016/j.jen.2015.01.012Scopus ID
2-s2.0-84924513817 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 10 CitationsAbstract
The 2014 outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in West Africa has presented a significant public health crisis to the international health community and challenged US emergency departments to prepare for patients with a disease of exceeding rarity in developed nations. With the presentation of patients with Ebola to US acute care facilities, ethical questions have been raised in both the press and medical literature as to how US emergency departments, emergency physicians, emergency nurses and other stakeholders in the healthcare system should approach the current epidemic and its potential for spread in the domestic environment. To address these concerns, the American College of Emergency Physicians, the Emergency Nurses Association and the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine developed this joint position paper to provide guidance to US emergency physicians, emergency nurses and other stakeholders in the healthcare system on how to approach the ethical dilemmas posed by the outbreak of EVD. This paper will address areas of immediate and potential ethical concern to US emergency departments in how they approach preparation for and management of potential patients with EVD.
Author List
Venkat A, Wolf L, Geiderman JM, Asher SL, Marco CA, McGreevy J, Derse AR, Otten EJ, Jesus JE, Kreitzer NP, Escalante M, Levine AC, American College of Emergency Physicians, Emergency Nurses Association, Society for Academic Emergency MedicineAuthor
Arthur R. Derse MD, JD Director, Professor in the Institute for Health and Equity department at Medical College of WisconsinMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
Disease OutbreaksEmergency Medicine
Emergency Nursing
Emergency Service, Hospital
Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola
Humans
Physicians
Societies, Medical
Societies, Nursing
United States