Patient Admission and Mechanical Ventilator Allocation Decision-Making Processes by Frontline Medical Professionals in a Japanese ICU During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to triage COVID-19 patients in ICUs emerged globally. Triage guidelines were established in many countries; however, the actual triage decision-making processes and decisions themselves made by frontline medical providers may not have exactly reflected those guidelines. Despite the need to understand decisions and processes in practice regarding patient ICU admission and mechanical ventilator usage to identify areas of improvement for medical care provision, such research is limited.