About Daniel Orenstein
Daniel G. Orenstein, JD, MPH, is Visiting Assistant Professor of Law at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis. He teaches in the areas of administrative law, public health law, and health care law and policy. His research focuses on public health law, policy, and ethics, and he was previously Deputy Director of the Network for Public Health Law Western Region, where much of his work centered on emergency preparedness and response, including resource allocation and government authority during declared emergencies, as well as vaccination policy.
Crisis Standards of Care This new report from the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health reports findings from a series of forums in which clinicians from hospitals across New York City discussed their experiences
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Weekly Review: Ethics, Law & Policy – Staff, Stuff, Space & Systems – February 22, 2021
February 22, 2021
Nursing Homes This article by Gorges & Konetzka uses data from over 13,000 US nursing homes to determine whether case mix, facility characteristics, and community spread were associated with racial differences in COVID-19-associated deaths among residents. The study found that
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Weekly Review: Ethics, Law & Policy – Staff, Stuff, Space & Systems – February 8, 2021
February 8, 2021
Health Care Workers This study by Yang et al. assesses whether health care workers (HCWs) are at risk of worse outcomes associated with COVID-19 (mechanical ventilation or death) compared to patients who are not HCWs. The target of the study
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Weekly Review: Ethics, Law & Policy – Staff, Stuff, Space & Systems – February 1, 2021
February 1, 2021
Resource Allocation This preprint article by Sarkar et al. assesses the performance of three severity scoring systems (SOFA, OASIS, and APACHE IVa) across race/ethnicity. While developed for other purposes, such scoring systems (in particular SOFA) are also used in many
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Weekly Review: Ethics, Law & Policy – Staff, Stuff, Space & Systems – January 25, 2021
January 25, 2021
Supplies The new administration under President Biden has issued a large number of executive orders in its first days, including several related to pandemic response. Among other actions are orders: Invoking various emergency authorities, including the Defense Production Act, to
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Weekly Review: Ethics, Law & Policy – Staff, Stuff, Space & Systems – January 19, 2021
January 19, 2021
Resource Allocation and Social Inequities This article by Schmidt, Roberts & Eneanya critiques the use of facially neutral (or “colorblind”) criteria for the allocation of scarce resources such as ventilators. Such neutral frameworks are designed to maximize utility, typically lives
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Weekly Review: Ethics, Law & Policy – Staff, Stuff, Space & Systems – January 11, 2021
January 11, 2021
Resource Allocation This article by Kerr & Schmidt provides a review of existing literature related to ventilator rationing protocols with a focus on disadvantaged populations’ views on appropriate principles. While the authors identified a large number of ventilator triage guidelines
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Weekly Review: Ethics, Law & Policy – Staff, Stuff, Space & Systems – December 21, 2020
December 21, 2020
Resource Allocation The National Academy of Medicine joined eight other national organizations in calling for governors, state health departments, and health system partners to prepare for implementation of crisis standards of care (CSC) during COVID-19 surge. The NAM recommendation comes
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Weekly Review: Ethics, Law & Policy – Staff, Stuff, Space & Systems – December 14, 2020
December 14, 2020
Disparities This article by Ogedegbe et al. examines racial/ethnic disparities in COVID-19 hospitalization and mortality among patients of a large New York City health system. Consistent with other existing data, this study found that Black and Hispanic patients were more
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Weekly Review: Ethics, Law & Policy – Staff, Stuff, Space & Systems – December 7, 2020
December 7, 2020
Crisis Standards of Care This report from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security analyses the experience of hospitals across New York City during the surge of COVID-19 patients in the city from April to June 2020 with a focus
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