Prioritization of surgical patients during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond: A qualitative exploration of patients' perspectives.

Introduction: During the COVID-19 pandemic, prioritizing certain surgical patients became inevitable due to limited surgical capacity. This study aims to identify which factors patients value in priority setting, and to evaluate their perspective on a decision model for surgical prioritization.

Methods: We enacted a qualitative exploratory study and conducted semi-structured interviews with N = 15 patients.

Surgical prioritization based on decision model outcomes is not sensitive to differences between the health-related quality of life values estimates of physicians and citizens.

Purpose: Decision models can be used to support allocation of scarce surgical resources. These models incorporate health-related quality of life (HRQoL) values that can be determined using physician panels. The predominant opinion is that one should use values obtained from citizens.

Minimizing population health loss due to scarcity in OR capacity: validation of quality of life input.

Objectives: A previously developed decision model to prioritize surgical procedures in times of scarce surgical capacity used quality of life (QoL) primarily derived from experts in one center. These estimates are key input of the model, and might be more context-dependent than the other input parameters (age, survival). The aim of this study was to validate our model by replicating these QoL estimates.

Minimising population health loss in times of scarce surgical capacity: a modelling study for surgical procedures performed in nonacademic hospitals.

Background: The burden of the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a reduction of available health care capacity for regular care. To guide prioritisation of semielective surgery in times of scarcity, we previously developed a decision model to quantify the expected health loss due to delay of surgery, in an academic hospital setting. The aim of this study is to validate our decision model in a nonacademic setting and include additional elective surgical procedures.