By Michelle Williams | Michelle.Williams@MassLive.com
In the midst of a surge in coronavirus cases, Massachusetts health officials revised a guidance for making decisions about which patients will receive potentially life-saving care if the system is overwhelmed, and which patients may not.

The guidance, issued earlier this month by state health officials, seeks to help hospitals answer such questions and offer transparency to the families of sick loved ones ahead of the expected surge of COVID-19 cases this month.

It asks hospitals to assign patients a score, ranking them based on likely long-term survival to determine priority for care. Younger, healthier patients were given preference over older adults, as are medical professionals and pregnant women. The highest priority is given to healthy, young patients with the potential to live longer after recovery.

After the document became public, many critics were vocal, worried some in the community would be penalized for health disparities that wouldn’t impact long-term survival.

In response, the guidelines were revised to acknowledge the impact of race and poverty on a person’s health and make clear that a patient’s disability alone is not an appropriate basis to disqualify a patient for potentially life-saving treatment in the event of a shortage of ventilators or beds available in the ICU.

The guidelines now focus on short-term survivability in recommendations for resources including ventilators.