Looking for solutions to never ending industry problems

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Abarency

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Due to the lack of a forum for members of management to discuss industry wide problems I'm going to start this here. I don't want that to sound like I'm only going to listen/respect responses from management. I will take every suggestion seriously. I'm here to improve what we all love.

A quick background of what I'm working with:

I am a field supervisor for a high call volume system in Western NY. We provide 911 services to a large city system and numerous volunteer based systems. In addition to all the 911 contracts we also handle a large share of the inter-facility and SNF transports in the area. Our area of operations spans four counties. We have a fleet of close to 70 ambulances and 12 flycars.


Now for the main reason for this thread. I will eventually be looking for more than just one topic so hopefully this can get moved to a more appropriate forum.


I would like to hear what your system does to get crew changes done and prevent holding crews over. I have tried many different things and whenever I think I have the problem figured out something else prevents it. Just start throwing ideas out and I can narrow down possibilities.

Thank you!
 
What kind of shifts? 12's, 24's? What time is shift change? How many crews on at what times?
 
Primarily we run 12 hour shifts. Crew changes on 24 hour cars (non peak cars) occur between 04:00-07:00 and respectively 12 hours later.

Peak cars come in at numerous times throughout the day.

There is 4 different bases where crew changes occur at. 3 of which (suburbs) only have on average for the day 6-8 crews and 4-6 at night. Within a 24 hour period we have on average 16-20 cars working out of the 4th base.

We mainly have a problem during change in the evening. Getting the oncoming crews into cars that can't get back to quarters can be a problem but that's easily solved. Looking to see if anyone has tried either bunching their crew change times or spreading them out more. How about having only a few short duration cars that exist only to help facilitate crew changes?
 
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Our changeovers stretched from 0400-0900 or 1600-2100 spaced by 15-30 minutes with a couple units coming on at 1100 and 1200. We run ~ 20 units during the day and 8-10 at night.

Do you run system status or are you in stations? We run system status and generally dispatch will move the unit that's nearing EOS out of the busy areas to the slow ones. We tend to get off on time but we do get held over once every week or two.
 
We are 98% SSM. The problem is we don't have a "slow area".

I would love to get our system to the point that someone is held over once every week or two...

I have never heard an employee complain that they are taking a 911 call after their out time but I know you can only take so much before to wears you down.
 
Abarency said:
We are 98% SSM. The problem is we don't have a "slow area".

I would love to get our system to the point that someone is held over once every week or two...

I have never heard an employee complain that they are taking a 911 call after their out time but I know you can only take so much before to wears you down.
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I mean we do have those weeks where your late EOS every single shift but it doesn't always happen.

I should have worded that better, we don't really have a "slow" area. Dispatch will move them out of central and towards the garage. For every unit that's coming off there's one coming on so unless they get a call right out of the gate dispatch is pretty good about giving the fresh crew the call instead of the EOS unit.
 
NVRob said:
For every unit that's coming off there's one coming on so unless they get a call right out of the gate dispatch is pretty good about giving the fresh crew the call instead of the EOS unit.
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A majority of the time I need the on duty car back to quarters to get the fresh crew on the road. Couple that with the fact that they may be up to 30 mins away from their quarters and the chance of a late call is high.
 
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Abarency said:
A majority of the time I need the on duty car back to quarters to get the fresh crew on the road. Couple that with the fact that they may be up to 30 mins away from their quarters and the chance of a late call is high.
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Ah I'm starting to see your situation a little bit better. Every crew here has an "assigned" unit so we don't have the problem of needing the truck to get the new crew on the street.
 
How about making some non-emergency vehicles available at the station (Chair Car or SUV)... the on-coming crew can meet the truck and off-going crew at a posting spot or hospital... or even respond to a scene... and the crew can swap on the road.
 
Abarency said:
A majority of the time I need the on duty car back to quarters to get the fresh crew on the road. Couple that with the fact that they may be up to 30 mins away from their quarters and the chance of a late call is high.
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Have you thought about simply adding an ambulance to each station? It costs 4 new ambulances (one per station), but now the oncoming crew can pickup the ambulance not being used, allowing them to get on the street sooner since they aren't dependent on the off coming crew making it back. It also cuts down on the delay between off coming crew clearing/cleaning up the ambulance followed by the on coming crew checking out the ambulance.
 
No truck comes off at the same time as any other truck. Dispatch tries to pull you back to a post near base and get you fuel early so you don't take a late call but if the last call is far from base a hold over is likely, since we have to drive through the city to get back to base.

AMR where I live now pulls their units back an hour prior to shift change. A high priority call can halt that, but nothing else, not even a lack of available units. This apparently works well, from what I am told.
 
JPINFV said:
Have you thought about simply adding an ambulance to each station? It costs 4 new ambulances (one per station), but now the oncoming crew can pickup the ambulance not being used, allowing them to get on the street sooner since they aren't dependent on the off coming crew making it back. It also cuts down on the delay between off coming crew clearing/cleaning up the ambulance followed by the on coming crew checking out the ambulance.
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Money being no object, this is the best solution. If the shifts overlaps, dispatch can send the oncoming crew out as soon as they are available and pull the off coming crew. It also results in cleaner truck and equipment, since getting back early gives you time to take care of your truck instead coming back late and cutting corners to hustle out.
 
Tigger said:
No truck comes off at the same time as any other truck. Dispatch tries to pull you back to a post near base and get you fuel early so you don't take a late call but if the last call is far from base a hold over is likely, since we have to drive through the city to get back to base.
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"Medic xxx, cleared for fuel" is my second favorite radio traffic to hear near the end of shift. First favorite is definitely, "Medic xxx, cleared for Edison, Goodnight."
 
NVRob said:
"Medic xxx, cleared for fuel" is my second favorite radio traffic to hear near the end of shift. First favorite is definitely, "Medic xxx, cleared for Edison, Goodnight."
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Me too. For a while dispatch was "forgetting" about us after posting us near the gas station, so now I just "remind" them to give us a fuel number so I don't get held over in the hood. Then they call me names when I turn in my keys, but hey my truck is clean and I'm not getting any frivolous OT, so everyone's happy.
 
We have tried stagering crew change times. Standard shift change being 6 am so we opened one 5 am car to handle the calls that would cause crews to go over.
 
Abarency..

are your units posting, or do they have designated quarters?
 
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