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Copied from the Idaho Department of Health & Welfare (Dec. 8, 2020)
Crisis standards of care are guidelines that help healthcare providers and healthcare systems decide how to deliver the best care possible under the extraordinary circumstances of a disaster or a public health emergency. Crisis standards of care guidelines would be used when resources are insufficient to provide the usual standard of care to people who need it. The goal of crisis standards of care is to save as many lives as possible. During a disaster, such as an earthquake or a pandemic, healthcare systems may be so overwhelmed by patients, or resources may be so scarce, that it may not be possible to provide all patients the level of care they would receive under normal circumstances. In those situations, crisis standards of care would guide decisions about how to allocate scarce resources, such as hospital beds, medications, or breathing machines.
Generally, contact tracing includes the following steps: