Criteria for prioritising access to healthcare resources in New Zealand during an influenza pandemic or at other times of overwhelming demand.

During overwhelming demand for resources, such as during an influenza pandemic, clinicians may be required to deny some patients access to a resource (for example ventilation, or hospital admission). However, no pragmatic guidance exists to help clinicians do this. This paper presents criteria for the prioritisation of access to resources during overwhelming demand. The criteria are in the form of eight questions related to the resource and the patients competing for it and are intended to be sufficiently comprehensive and sufficiently succinct to be useful to clinicians who might be required to make such decisions.