Inside EMS Podcast: Performance Metrics and Death With Dignity

On this episode of Inside EMS, co-host Chris Cebollero and I discuss the story out of Charlotte, NC of MEDIC paramedics complaining that a new points system rewarding shorter time-on-task will encourage rushed and sloppy patient care.

I’m not a fan of many performance metrics in EMS. While I acknowledge that we must track certain things to have any idea of how efficiently we are performing, we have an unsettling tendency in this profession to believe that just because something can be measured, that it is therefore important to be measured. My employer tracks such things, and raises are based in part on those performance measures, but at least they allow for the elements of time-on-task that are out of our control.

In our other segment, we discuss the case of Maplewood, MN Fire Department medics who honored the wishes of a patient’s husband, who had her power-of-attorney, to let her die.

That in itself is not unusual. How they went about it is.

Tune into the podcast to find out how, and weigh in with your comments and opinions.