[Priority setting in intensive care from an ethical perspective]

Priority setting at intensive care units is legally regulated in accordance with the so-called ethical platform, which states that all priorities must be based on three lexically ranked principles: the principle of human dignity (a ban on discrimination, e.g. based on social standing), the principle of needs and solidarity, and the principle of cost-effectiveness. Prioritization for intensive care is particularly difficult as it requires comparisons between widely different patient categories, occurs in acute situations and is fraught with great uncertainty about the prognosis. Sometimes the degree of severity is maximal for several patients: without treatment, they die. Then treatment effect and cost-effectiveness become more decisive for prioritization decisions. Moreover, withholding and withdrawing intensive care are increasingly considered as morally equivalent. Difficult priority decisions risk moral stress among the intensive care staff.