Dive Brief:
- Dr. Jullette Saussy is resigning from her post as medical director of D.C. Fire and EMS (FEMS) after seven months, with her service set to end February 13, dcist reports.
- Saussy wrote that her reform attempts of the much-criticized department have been "met with resistance from the top down" and that the department suffers a lack of accountability at all levels.
- Her resignation letter details to Mayor Muriel Bowser why "people die needlessly" in D.C., disagrees with the mayor's plan to solve the problem through the assistance of private ambulances, and attacks the leadership of Fire Chief Gregory Dean.
Dive Insight:
Saussy says the problem comes down to a lack of committment and attention to EMS at the agency. Further, she says the department "fails to measure its true performance beginning with response times, and provides 'incomplete measurements and elaborate graphs resulting in inaccurate and flawed information.'"
Her criticisms fuel a common debate over public safety resources, structure and hierarchy as she recommends the creation of a separate department in D.C. to manage advanced life support operations.
Further, her letter suggests she had little choice but to resign, both legally and ethically. She notes she was unwilling to place her license on the line to verify the skill competency of D.C. medics without the department's cooperation in assessing them, and that the department's previous several medical directors have been sued over their providers' lack of competence.
"You cannot fix something if you have no idea where your baseline competency exists and you cannot improve that which you do not measure," she wrote, indicating the public safety agency is completely unaligned with the healthcare industry's push toward quality metrics.