Hey Vollies!-set schedules or come one and all?

[crash_cart]

Ideally, should volly EMT schedules be set or should anyone and everyone show up? A few stations in nearby towns have set schedules as to who shows up when the pager goes off. The volly station I'm with doesn't have a set schedule, just whoever shows up is whoever shows up. I don't know if a set schedule would work in a community of 1,200 people and a handful of EMTs.:unsure: At the same time, it's annoying to be working on a scene and have six or seven people standing outside the door peering in.Good lord, go home people!

 

[Topher38]

Im going to say, yes get a schedule. My fire department doesnt have a set schedule but let me tell you what. We had a stroke this morning, and I was first on scene. THEN! about 4 other EMTs Showed up along with our Rescue truck which carried 3 people as well. It was pretty funny after wards looking at all those fire fighters standing and waiting outside while 2 people (myself and an officer) questioned the patient.

Ive seen volunteer departments that have 1 or 2 paid EMTs that stay at the station and wait for calls. That seems to work out very well.

 

[KEVD18]

the way i see it, if theres a period of time where im scheduled to be available to respond for calls, i better be getting paid. whereas if its a whoevers available, respond type of deal then its actually volunteering.

 

[enjoynz]

The Vollies at our station pick what days to go on duty at the beginning of the month. My husband and myself live a 20 min drive from the Station we crew for (in the next town), so we stay on station when on duty and carry pagers.
(The Paid Staff take the ambulance home with them, lucky guys).
For the other vollies that live in that town, they have pagers and when they are on duty, the ambulance picks them up at home, on the way to a job.

It seems to work out well, not like our Fire Service Vollies (Fire is seperate from Ambulance in NZ). When the siren goes up, they all head for the station, but only the first four crew can man a truck, there are only 2 trucks. So after 8 crew, the rest have to head home again.

Cheers Enjoynz

 

[BossyCow]

This is another one of those situation where the solution has to fit the problem. In our station, we all show up, anyone who is available. But most of our volunteers have jobs which take them out of the district during the day. So a schedule is just unrealistic.

In another adjoining district, they have probably 3 times as many volunteers and a smaller, more urban area to cover. They have schedules and it works really well for them.

As to having a bunch of firefighters standing around a driveway looking pointless, has anyone considered just sending them home? We do that frequently. All it takes is an announcement over the radio.. "Sufficient personnel responding (or on scene) all incoming units, stand down"

This is simply your officers acting like officers. We also are told that the first responding units are to perform a type of triage. Determining the number of responders needed. Anyone else is to remain outside the residence, and behind the ambulance so we don't look silly.

 

[Topher38]

This is another one of those situation where the solution has to fit the problem. In our station, we all show up, anyone who is available. But most of our volunteers have jobs which take them out of the district during the day. So a schedule is just unrealistic.

In another adjoining district, they have probably 3 times as many volunteers and a smaller, more urban area to cover. They have schedules and it works really well for them.

As to having a bunch of firefighters standing around a driveway looking pointless, has anyone considered just sending them home? We do that frequently. All it takes is an announcement over the radio.. "Sufficient personnel responding (or on scene) all incoming units, stand down"

This is simply your officers acting like officers. We also are told that the first responding units are to perform a type of triage. Determining the number of responders needed. Anyone else is to remain outside the residence, and behind the ambulance so we don't look silly.

Good point. I have been sent home alot =[ its not fun. Especially when you drive 15 minutes to the call and expect to be able to help out when someone yells froms across the scene "go home!" =/

 

[Jolt]

Our volunteer service has a volunteer crew on duty (when one signs up) with a contracted paramedic in a fly car (or with the EMT if only one EMT signs up). Area responses are an option for volunteers not on duty, but the crew will be there shortly anyway.

 

[skyemt]

it's not one or the other...

we have no set schedule during the day... if you have the problem of too many members constantly showing up, then you have a great agency.

night time is often problematic, so we DO have a set schedule from 8pm to 6am.


remember, the solution has to fit the problem, but it is not all or nothing. a blend may very well work for many agencies, and i have seen it work.

 

[Topher38]

I like that "The solution has to fit the problem"

Alot of the time we have WAY too many people showing up on calls. A set schedule might work because we have alot of dedicated members.

 

[Jon]

The station where I vollie has set schedules for both the daytime paid crews and the nighttime vollie crews. This station has 5000 calls a year, and we are also a training center, so we always have students who are along to learn. We staff 2 crews and a paid supervisor 24x7. Day shift has a 5th person - during the week, it is the Executive Director, and part-timers fill in on the weekends. The 5th person responds with the supervisor when the 3rd BLS unit is needed. We have 5 total BLS rigs, and when we go to 4th or 5th call, we have volunteers who show up to get the trucks out (because we only do that once or twice a month).

Our regular night shift schedule is 6p-midnight and midnight-6a. Some nights have full crews that run every week, and some nights have open spots that get filled in by volunteers picking up an extra shift (Most of our volunteers run only one shift a week). The system works for us, and every primary EMT/Driver on the schedule gets some extra incentive points when the schedule is full and we don't need paid staff to fill-in. We've gotten 40 or 45 weeks with 100% coverage for the last couple of years.


Another local squad has a combination of people 24x7. Some full-time paid staff with regular shifts, some volunteers with regular shifts, and then whatever gaps in coverage that haven't been filled by volunteers are offered to the part-time paid staff the week or so before - this is a squad with a much lighter call volume, but they also have a lower number of active members.



Schedules make sure that people don't get burned out. At the busy place where I vollie, each crew gets at least one call each shift. Additionally, becauase of the location, I need to stay on-station when I run. If it was a smaller community, I might run 3 nights a week, but only get 2 calls.

Depending on the situation and the call volumes, you may need a detailed schedule, or you may need something more casual. There are electronic scheduing programs out there that allow you to check availibility and coordinate everyone's schedules. My squad uses a Excel spreadsheet that is posted in a password-protected portion of the squad's webpage, so that we can remotly check the schedule. The supervisor's edit the schedule on the network several times a day, and there are also copies posted at the station.




Now, if you have lots of members showing up on calls... maybe you just need better communications. How about a highband channel that everyone can talk on, and that way, you can hear as others respond. My local FD issued highband portables to many of the active senior firefighters so that they could status that they were responding to the station - that meant that the paid staff would wait on the ramp for them to pull up, rather than responding with a light crew.

I suggest highband because it ISN'T monitored by our county, that way we can use it as we see fit, and we don't have to tie up a dispatcher. The channel is monitored in the station, so we can all hear it when someone calls on it.

 

[Vizior]

Our vollie squad has a set schedule, while many surrounding agencies do not. I've found the set schedule has a number of advantages, for one thing, we don't drop calls.

In our district we don't have a paid ambulance staff to respond, we have a few paid by call agencies, but they generally only cover their own district. For our mutual aid districts that don't have a set schedule, we tend to see the Priority 3 and 4 calls(generall sickness, busted knee, finger lac, etc) getting ignored and dropped, and therefore mutual aided to us. But, if 5 minutes later a large MVA or respiratory difficulties, etc comes through, suddenly they crew up on the 1st page.

 

[EMTBandit]

We have set duty nights for Monday through Friday. The weekends and Holidays are left open for anyone who wants to ride or who shows up. It works pretty well for us. You can choose to stay at the station or just be at home and if a call comes out you can respond from there. Everybody just seems to stay at the station until about 12'ish or so, so it works out pretty well. We are able to choose which nights we want to ride so there is no complaining and a maximum of 4 people to one duty night.

 

[Topher38]

I wish thats the way my fire department was run, that would be great.

Our officers are great at organizing and setting everything up very quickly, they are all very experienced. But we just have too many people showing up to calls, so they end up sending alot of people back to the station to sit and wait.

:angry:

 

[EMT19053]

The service I vollie for is in a town of about 1300 people. On weekends from 6:00pm Friday to 6:00am Monday we have two EMT's on call with pagers. During the week it is a free for all as alot of people work out of town. When the pagers go off we are to call in to the hospital to get our info and the nurse will tell you how many people have called in. Many times EMT's that live outside of town will meet the rig at the scene. I have not seen it yet where we have to many people respond, wish we had that problem. The only time everyone shows up is for an unresponsive page or an MVA page. Our system works pretty good for us though and I guess that's what counts.

 

[ohwise124]

Here's how we run it....

Village of 1200 people. We cover about 5000 people covering about 100 square (many many rural) miles. 18 EMTs, 6 drivers, 2 ambulances, all volunteer. Wisconsin law says we have to have a schedule. We run our shift 7 am to 7 pm, and 7 pm to 7 am, from Sunday evening to Friday night. You are also assigned to a weekend crew, covering every sixth weekend from 7 pm Friday night until 7 pm Sunday night. We know we're covered 24/7, not just hoping someone shows up, especially during the day when many work at least 20 minutes away. We also know when we're on call we aren't going to be sent home due to too many showing up.

 

[emtwacker710]

We cover two fire districts and also have mutual aid agreements with 5-6 surrounding agencies. 6p-6a everyday of the year we have a paid crew on consisting of a basic emt and either a level 3 or medic, except on thursdays we have 2 crews:huh: but once 6p hits its the assigned vollie crew for that night..if they show up..and any second calls anytime it falls to the vollie crew and if we don't get out then it's mutual aided...