Calculating Personnel Needs

[FormerEMSLT297]

So, I have been tasked with looking into our staffing needs, and I have a question for system managers and bosses.

How do you calculate your manpower needs ???... For example, how many Parameidcs do you need to run 1 unit 24/7 365....

I know in NYC, the old formula was 3 medics per shift x 3 shifts =9 medics at a minimum to run the unit 24 hours a day, factoring in vacation, they used 10 medics to cover 24/7....

The unit i am curently with runs a little diferently, and i was just wondering about any "formulas" out there to help with this little tidbit..

Factor in that a lot of our medics are senior and get 3-5 weeks per year of vacation.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[zippyRN]

So, I have been tasked with looking into our staffing needs, and I have a question for system managers and bosses.

How do you calculate your manpower needs ???... For example, how many Parameidcs do you need to run 1 unit 24/7 365....

I know in NYC, the old formula was 3 medics per shift x 3 shifts =9 medics at a minimum to run the unit 24 hours a day, factoring in vacation, they used 10 medics to cover 24/7....

The unit i am curently with runs a little diferently, and i was just wondering about any "formulas" out there to help with this little tidbit..

Factor in that a lot of our medics are senior and get 3-5 weeks per year of vacation.

Thanks in advance for the help.

365*24 = 8760 hours in a year

* 2 crew per vehicle = 17520 person hours to be covered ...

you then need to factor the 'average' working year in hours of your crews

what is their contracted hours per week

do you wish to include any other time off the road e.g. CPD time as well as vacation ...

then you have to consider whether you want to include any sickness cover - you should be able to find out wheat percetntage of hours are lost due to sickness

[HERBIE1]

I think you need to provide more information. What is the number of employees and their level of certification? What are the manning requirements- ie-1 EMTP/1EMTB? Are there contractual issues that mandate work schedules, vacations, time off, comp time, etc. I don't know if a pat formula would be the best idea- maybe I'm wrong.

[crotchitymedic1986]

I dont think there is a magical formula that fits every department, you have to customize it to your needs. The first question I would ask is why a 24/48 ? If you are an existing service, you could probably staff a 10-12 hour unit instead of a 24. Better yet, for the price of a 24, you could staff "2" 12s during peak hours. So first you need to look at your call volume, track it over the last 90 days or so, specifically looking at the times of day and days of week you frequently are "out of ambulances". Once you have that data, you can better decide how you should staff. If you are a govt agency that does not allow part-time folks, then I would staff atleast one extra person for every 4-6 trucks you are running (more if you have a kelly/liberty day that requires one or more people to be off every single shift). Without knowing your call volume, number of existing trucks, and frequency of paid-time-off usage, it would be hard to give you further advice.

[FormerEMSLT297]

Thanks for all the responses.... IT IS NOT 24/48.....

What i need is to cover 1 unit 24/7 395 using a 4 day work week with 3 days off, as that is what is contractually allowed for.... so basically we have a 12 person minimum to run 24 hours with no OT.. (we have some over lap during the day and evening shift to allow people to go to CME, PT, etc.

What im trying to figure out is, when they set up the schedule, they never afctored in people taking vacation, or calling in sick, so that is currently covered by OT.... How many FTE's do i need to have to cover vacations, and reduce OT, obviously since we only hire F/T peole when we have "extra" people around, we either send people out to CME, or sometimes run an extra unit.

Thanks again