Neither the cost of caring for particular patients nor the perceived social worth of a patient should determine how limited ICU bed space is allocated. The only ethical way to decide which patients should be in an ICU is by determining whether ICU care, compared to treatment in a general hospital setting, would change the outcome for the patient, either by likelihood or length of survival or in quality of survival. Given a situation of unlimited economic resources, including ICU beds and training health care personnel, "any possible benefit" to a patient would be the standard for ICU admittance. The standard of benefit would become more restrictive as the number of seriously ill patients far outnumbers available ICU beds. As long as the standard of benefit is applied equally to all types of patients and diseases, restrictions on ICU are appropriate even if AIDS patients are excluded. 15 notes.