Multnomah County retracts claim that overdoses led to lower cardiac arrest survival rates in 2023

County EMS Medical Director Dr. Jonathan Jui rebutted that criticism, and explained that his data showed overdoses were responsible for the falling survival rates, not slower ambulance response times.

It’s an explanation that made intuitive sense. But it was wrong.

Last month, OPB identified inconsistencies in the data that had been originally prepared by Jui as part of training for paramedics and then shared with Willamette Week. Two national experts on out-of-hospital cardiac arrest also said overdoses were an unlikely explanation for a decline in the survival rate.

At OPB’s request, Multnomah County’s public health team conducted a new review of the past 10 years of cardiac arrest survival rates in the county.

Source: Multnomah County retracts claim that overdoses led to lower cardiac arrest survival rates in 2023