24-48

[AXMAN620]

Hello, My EMS agency has finaly left behind the 12 hr. shifts and went to 24-48. How does your dept.'s handle the overtime? Is it after 40 hrs a week or 112 every two or other ways?

[hageremtp]

Glad you brought this up as I have another question to add to it?
Tell me what you think of this. The co that I now work for has three different shifts. One is an 8 hour shift where you are the "transport" team. You work only 8 hours a day and do all the transfers between the hospitals and nursing homes. THen we have another 8 hour crew that is the back up 911 crew and will take occasional transfers if the transfer crew is busy. After the 8 hours this crew goes home and is on pager for 16 hours (pager pay is 1.25). Then we have a 16 hour crew. THis crew is actually a 24 hour crew but gets paid to work the 16 hours. The other 8 hours is sleep time. You do not get paid for this 8 hours unless there is a call. Then you get paid for CALL time only. if however the call or a combo of calls takes more than 3 hours then you get paid for the whole 24. Any time you get a run at night the CALL time is overtime, and if your on the pager crew at home (the 16 hr pager) you earn overtime for being paged in.

So our in our work week we get scheduled for 40 hours. Either one 16 and 3 8's or two 16's and one 8. In two weeks you work a regular 80 hours, have at least 32 hours of call time and any overtime that you may get on CALL TIMES ONLY.


How does this sound to you all??

[kyffmedic]

We do ours a little different than most. Our department realized how bad a 96 hour paycheck was,so they cut our pay week off at midnight instead of 0800. What that does is gives us a 104, 112, and a 120 hour payweek. If you end it at 0800, or whenever you tour is over, you will end up with a 96 hour paycheck at some point.

[ADSNWFLD]

Pay periods and overtime issues are concerns for the shift but most important is your call volume in relation to shift.

If your running over 15 or so calls in a 24 hour time period then you should be on 12 hour or 10/14 or some other split shift. Regular sleep deprivation is not good for you or your patients. We have all had shifts on the box where your lucky to get 30 minutes of uninterupted sleep. Your skills aren't as sharp, you miss things and make mistakes.

That beinng said I like the 42 hour work week 2 days on, few days off, 2 nights on, more time off. You need 4 shifts to cover 24/7/365.

My .02

[IAMedic]

I have heard of probably everything imaginable. 24/48's are popular in this area. I have heard of getting straight shift pay per worked shift, getting 8 hours of overtime, and then of course those that don't get paid 4 hours of sleeping giving you a 40 hour work week. I myself, think I would prefer getting the straight shift pay. Sometimes it would work in your favor and sometimes not.

Personally, I think that if you are at the job, sleeping or not, you should be paid for it. I don't think I would work for a job that made me work 24's and didn't pay me for sleeping. It doesn't make sense to me to give them xx amount of hours for me being there when I could be at home next to my lady. :D

[swrr88]

I don't know about everyone else, but I personally wouldn't go back to 24-48 if my life depended on it. UGH!

I did for a couple years. Not again.

I have worked just about all of the possible shifts: 24s, 8s, 12s, 14s, 10s. I have done the 2 days off, 3 off, and 4 off.

I just don't think 24-48 gives you enough time away to recover from work. Maybe you are in a low demand system but in a high volume system I think it wears you out. The first day is recovery time. You are tired and trying to just relax. The second day you gotta get ready to go back to work, head to bed early, get in the mindset, and get your crap together. You can't get away anywhere without taking off because you are always getting ready to go back.

Personally I love any schedule with a 4 off perk. It gives time to recover and then have enough time to do something. I am a 12hr guy. I pull 2 days and 2 nights and then 4 off. I feel like I am never at work. When I am there I feel like I am almost done. It keeps me fresh. If we get run into the ground you can always look to your break for salvation. By the time you are go back you miss the job and are ready to head in.

Just my personal likes and dislikes

[Halligan]

I am personally scheduled for 12 hour shifts 4on-4off (all nights :cool: ), but can work up to 16 hours if a run goes over the end of our shift. The hospital that I work for gives us time and half for anything over 40 hours in a week.
In the past I have worked 8, 12, 24, 36, and 48hr shifts. But I personally think 12-16hrs should be the maximum that EMTs and Paramagics :D should work, any more then that and I believe you become more of a risk then help for the public. :rolleyes: :cool:

[RoryEl]

Overtime is regulated under the Fair Labor and Standards Act (FLSA). EMS is included in the 40 hours work week, fire under various other schedules that encompass 212 hours every 30 days. check it out.

[Canmedic]

Our Dept works a 4 on, 2 off, 4 on, 6 off, with 2-10 hour days, and 2 14 hours nights making up a tour. I can't even imagine working a 24 hr shift....I realize that's pretty much the "norm" in some areas of the states, but I don't even think it exists here in Alberta. I will admit, our dept does seem to get a lot of overtime, so its probably not the most condusive to being cost effective; at the same time, for the employee, this shift schedule just ROCKS. I believe Edmonton Fire Dept and Calgary Fire Dept do the same shift.

Mike Kesthely
FF/EMT-P
Lethbridge Fire Dept.

[Medic946]

My previous employer, a government 3rd service paramedic program used the 2-10hr days, 2-16hr nights and then four days off. It was good shift until they decided we couldn't sleep on nightwork anymore and had to patrol our service area all night. Driving around for fourteen hours is a serious hazard. The federal transportation department won't let truck drivers drive for more than 12 hrs straight. It was rough for an older guy like me. My current employer uses a varied shift depending on the employee choice. You can work 8 hr shifts, 12 hrs shifts or sixteen hour shifts. What you do on your down time is up to you. There is only one rule: Don't miss a call! I work prn so i fill in as the shifts are open but the full timers can work six days on and have eight off or work eight days on and have six off. The shifts usually run 12-12-12-12-16-16 for the six day on and 8-12-12-12-12-12-8-8 for the 8 day on schedule. Crews are permanent day or night shifters. It's also flexible as they can all or part of a shift off if needed and can switch shifts with other medics provided the supervisor is notified. Just about everyone there works part time at another EMS/Fire/ or Medevac agency on their 6 or 8 days off. I found it to be much easier to handle than the 2-2-4 sans sleeping privileges.

[CDean1262]

When I was a EMS member of the Chicago Fire Department, we were pushing for a greater representation on the Fire suppression side in terms of medics crossing over. When that effort stalled, in 1990 we filed an FLSA suit against the City. After almost 5 years, and winning at every court level, including the U.S. Supreme Court, the City was forced to pay out almost $30 million in back overtime. We were on a 24 on/48 off schedule, with a daley day every 5th tour(5 straight days off) just like the firemen were. However, more often than not, you worked your daley because of the manpower shortages. The response of the City after the lawsuit was to change our work schedules to 24 on / 72 off, and dropping the daley off. Our vacations became seniority based(prior, everybody regardless of seniority after their first year got 3 17 day furloughs,)and our opportunities for overtime went from 2 per month to 8! And the beauty of it was, we STILL got additional FLSA pay because we did not come under 40 hours. One of the drawbacks was that you didn't work with the same FF's every day, which did a lot to affect the camaraderie. The FF's had the chance to go on that shift, but the guys with < than 5 years who would have seen their furlough time dramatically disappear managed to help get it stopped. Too many guys were also worried about their side jobs instead of worrying about the Fire Department first. And believe you me, 20-25-30 runs in 24 hours was not uncommon on a lot of rigs(there were 59 ALS rigs, and the City has added 12 BLS rigs in recent years.)Our measure of the day was how many we did AFTER midnight, because we didn't care how many we did before that, as long as we got SOME sleep.