Paramedic - Hennepin EMS (Minneapolis, MN)

[WestMetroMedic]

Hennepin EMS is hiring at least 6 FT paramedics (40hrs/week) for a February or March start date. As a service of Hennepin County Medical Center, an academic Level 1 Adult and Pediatric trauma center located in the urban core of Minneapolis, we serve 800,000 residents and a week day population of 1.2 million in 14 unique municipalities. Approximately 135 full time Paramedics are supported by 15 EMT-EMD dispatchers, 10 supervisors, 4 stock staff and 5 support and billing staff members. Last year, we completed over 64,000 encounters, with a UHU of around 0.44, but this is a staffing push to reduce to 0.38 (We added 20 additional positions last year to reduce UHU, but a 10% volume increase was seen).

Aggressive, industry leading protocols and research commitments help our paramedics perform excellent pre-hospital care in a system that ONLY does 911 response (NO IFT's). We are the market wage driver for the Minneapolis and St. Paul 7 county metro area and are enrolled in the state Police and Fire pension (PERA) that vests at 20 years and is 100% in 33 years. In addition to the intial uniform issue (~$1,000 worth), a year $500 uniform allowance is given.

27 Road Rescue Ultramedic ambulances on Ford E350 V10 gasoline chassis that are nearly all equipped with Stryker's PowerLOAD system. We have fully deployed LUCAS2, Zoll E-Series (for another 2-3 years), TriTech's VisiCAD, OPEN's SafetyPAD tablet based ePCR, Stryker StairPRO chairs, and Motorola's series of APX portable and mobile radios on a 99% in-building portable coverage P25 trunked system.

Out of state applicants can often Skype interview and receive serious consideration (1/2 of last hire group was out of state).

Hennepin EMS is a career, everything else is a job.

 

[Rykielz]

PM sent

 

[TRSpeed]

Sounds great. What are the shifts like? Is OT rare and seniority based? Pay Scale in "steps". Do they offer relocation bonuses? I am assuming you guys do SSM?
Thanks

 

[WestMetroMedic]

Although your first year of employment can potentially have a variable schedule, Paramedics work 4 days a week. Shift bid occurs yearly with quarterly rebid options. Two 12 hours shifts and two 8 hour shifts, or four 10 hour shifts is the standard practice but about 15 senior paramedics have a float shift that may result in 5 days in a work week. Some shifts have blocked work weeks and some are a scramble. My schedule is based on a 8 day week that cycles 6 times over 7 weeks. This results in three consecutive 4 day weekends followed by 4 weekends working with 3 days off during weekdays (Which isn't a perfect deal, but isn't that bad). From the outside, it is really confusing, but if makes sense.

My rotations looks like this:
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
12 8 8 Off Off Off 12
12 12 8 8 Off Off Off
Off 12 12 8 8 Off Off
Off Off 12 12 8 8 Off
Off Off Off 12 12 8 8
8 Off Off Off 12 12 8
8 8 Off Off Off 12 12

There is no rotation between nights and days. You are either set on days, afternoons or nights. Shift Differentials exist for after shifts, night shifts and weekend shifts. Acting as a preceptor for new employees or paramedic students also carries a $2/hour shift differential. 8 holidays every year receive 2 1/2 pay plus 8 hours of bonus PTO (I made about $765 to work 12 hours on Christmas Day plus earned about $300 worth of bonus PTO).

Overtime can be obtained in a couple different ways, but we only have 7 per diem/casual/intermittent Paramedics which makes OT more likely. There is some obligatory overtime such as 8 hours of yearly skills review, 8 hours every 3 years driving refresher and a couple of other opportunities.
Long Term Overtime is anything with more than 72 hours notice which is issued 48 hours prior to the event, and is completely seniority based, but is not impossible to obtain. In addition to overtime on the streets, we provide coverage to many sporting teams:
*NFL (Vikings) - 3 Paramedics on the field, 2 Paramedics in the stands to supplement the BLS response group
MLB (Twins) - 2 Paramedics in the dugout, 1 Paramedic in the stands to supplement the BLS response group
NBA (Timberwolves) - 2 Paramedics court side for players and staff only
WNBA (Lynx) - 2 Paramedics court side for players and staff only
*U of MN Football - 2 Paramedics on the field for players and staff only

* Every Paramedic gets an opportunity to work at least one football game a year if they wish

Short Notice Over Time (SNOT) is anything that has less than 72 hours notice and is issued by seniority, but in order to be eligible for this overtime, you must enter your availability on our department website and management will call down the list of available employees until they find someone to take the shift. I don't generally put in for overtime, but the couple times that I have put myself on the SNOT list, I have had pretty decent luck.

Hennepin County has a couple laws that govern the 5 ALS services in Hennepin County. In addition to mandating that 911 calls receive a 2 Paramedic response, they also mandate 8 hours of time off premise every 24 hour period, which means that you will never work more than 16 hours in a day.

Our starting Paramedics begin around $20.58/hour plus differentials (which can be up to around an additional $5 or 6/hour for a weekend night shift if you have a paramedic student). There are 8 (I think) pay steps over the course of 10 years and top base wage is around $32/hour. After the completion of your 6 month probationary period, you are obligated to join HCAPE, which is our union that is NOT affiliated with any other organization and only includes Hennepin EMS paramedics and dispatchers, and monthly dues are around $50 a month.

Although we do not use a true SSM model, we do dynamically deploy our vehicles throughout our service area. Our max staffing load is 19 ambulances (Friday afternoons) and our minimum staffing load is 7 ambulances (0330 to 0530). A busy 12 hour shift can result in 15 transports and about 200 miles of driving, but the no-hitter is not impossible (I get about one every year and a half). This is a place that you must not come to with the notion that you will be able to hide and sit around on your duff. This is a place that you must come to if you want to be busy, have the tools you need to do your job, and get very good at what you do.

 

[jgmedic]

Is there out of state reciprocity? Or is NREMT required?

 

[WestMetroMedic]

Although Hennepin does not require you to have a national card, in order to get a Minnesota card, you must hold National Registry, and then you can get a MN card free of charge.
http://www.emsrb.state.mn.us/reciprocity.asp

 

[ffemt8978]

Moved to job openings forum and closed.