Mann, Matt Rnd II

I hate to dissapoint you, but the only reason that those particular meeting minutes were posted is because that meeting was open to the public. I know what your next comment is: “Seems you have some real interest, there!”

Actually I am saying- from the first comment by you I was lead to believe that the minutes would be posted all the time and that I must be an idiot for not being able to see them. Turns out they won’t be posted all the time.

It seems that we certainly have yours. Feel free to attend one if you want to know more, we’d love to have you.

You still haven’t said who you are, and if you’re an “ex” employee why should you care about people knowing who you are? I’m going to choose to disbelieve that one.

Read again. I am an ex Division employee.

If you want to know about the reason for meetings at the 858’s it was originally because they were going to give us a very good deal on renting an office, but they decided that they can’t, so the meetings aren’t there anymore, and it really was that simple.

“They were going to give us a very good deal.” You should copy and paste that somewhere so that if a merger ever does occur you can go back and read it because I assure you they will or have said the same thing about a merger.

As far as what happened with Glendale, I’ve heard from a district cheif that I have had the luck to spend some time with that the reason they went through Denver’s academy and ended up as line firefighters was due to Glendales low call volume in comparison to the DFD’s…. can you disagree? Do we suffer from the same affliction? Would they be hiring us as Paramedics or as Firefighters? hmmm.

Well, that is the question isn’t it. If they hire you as firefighter your call volume currently is somewhat less than anyones at Glendale would you agree? If they are hiring you as a paramedic and you want to see how that has worked out, travel to SF, NY, ST. Louis, Chicago or any of the other systems that have been sold that bill of goods and see how it turned out for them. History of the IAFF is ignored at your own peril. Why repeat the mistakes of these other departments? Why not instead learn from them?

Maybe we would suffer the same fate, but when a line firefighter with only an emt basic and firefighter I cert makes almost 20k more per year after 4 years than a line paramedic at DHMC with the same amount of seniority and enjoys amenities such as a station, a bed, and a crew that he gets to work with everyday… would I really mind?

So, it’s about the money? Ok, what amount of money would keep Matt Mann from taking the plunge and wanting to be a Firefighter? Give me a number. While you’re bouncing that around in your head let me ask you this. When you applied for a job at the division were you not aware of the dynamic posting nature of the job? Were you not aware that you would not have a station and a bed? If those are things that would make you happiest while working why not move yourself to a new job, rather than try to make your current job fit your desires?

I know- “Technically you make more an hour as a paramedic”, but- my career longevity would be much better if I wasn’t stuck in the front of an ambulance, additionally, I’ll take it for the average reduction of 6 days working per month.

It isn’t all that technical, you do make more per hour. but by putting it in quotes like you do, you give it the appearance that it is false. So apply for a job at any of the metro area Fire Departments. It seems that from your argument you want to have your cake and eat it too.

Why do you think that we’ve lost so many good paramedics to outlying metro area fire departments? Why do we continue to do so?

Because they don’t want to work there anymore, for a variety of reasons. Seriously, how many of these “good”( I put this in quotes because I don’t think all of those folks who went to a Fire department are all good, any more than all those “”Great medics”" who are at Porter are great) paramedics went to fire departments? They did not want to change the paramedic division into another aspect of DFD. People also leave to become MD’s/PA/RN, so what?

How many more dfd stations are there than the amount of ambulances on the street from DHMC at our peak hours? What if everyone of these had an als ambulance… how many calls do you (or DID you, sorry) go to where dfd beat you to the scene, hmmm that might change.

I can think of tons of times in which I was there prior to DFD. So what. The thing that matters is the delivery of care, not that it gets there faster. West Metro demands that every person hired becomes a medic. They have one on all kinds of apparatus. They get there hella quick. They have no experience. How would you best get them experience, you rotate them into high call volume areas, like station 8 for example in Denver. Fine and now you may have a bed Mr. Mann and a station but you don’t spend lots of time in them. And since there are others with less experience who need that time, your “crew that you get to work with everyday” dream is gone as you move to a slower station. Where you get a bed and crew, but your skills deteriorate. But wait, so far I haven’t heard you mention a thing about that. As you say, hmmmm.

We all got into this to help people, what if we really could provide als care that much quicker to our patients, and have that many more ambulances in the city for them? I know it sounds like it, but I’m not necessarily anti-division or anti-Denver Health. I started on the detox vans in 1999 and have worked in different positions here at Denver Health all with the hope of doing what I do now, I still love what I do, otherwise I wouldn’t care.

What if someone could provide a peer reviewed scientific study that showed response times aren’t all that important, but that delivery of competent care is. What if one could find a study that showed 4 minute delivery of BLS care with the ability to provide AED followed shortly by ALS capable care was the best way to deliver Prehospital care? Gosh that sounds an awful lot like a study someone should do. Because I will tell you this Mr. Mann the whole response time focus is a ruse. There is no national standard for response time. The closest is NFPA-1710, which by the way uses 8:59 in it’s calculations. It also couches it’s language in the form of recommendations. If one looks closely at this article by Gary Ludwig, no fan of third services, you will note that it looks an awful lot like a tiered response system, which, wait for it- Denver is. NY City EMS has a 10 minute response time obligation and they are a firebased ems system. The idea itself came from a position paper published over 20 years ago and was more based on economics than health care delivery. There is less science behind it than anything you do in the field. Intuition leads one to believe that getting there quicker is better, but at one time the belief was MAST pants worked as well, until someone actually did research and found out otherwise. Of course there are still some agencies that carry them. Getting back to response times and research we have a study as outlined above, maybe you have heard of the authors- Pons, Markovchick, Haukoos, et al I know, someone will say, “it is biased they all work there,” or did. This is the beauty of peer reviewed journals though. They actually go over this stuff and REVIEW it for biases. Since it was published, I am going to surmise they found none. I also found this, from Bledsoe, again not a fan of third services. Who says cardiac arrest save rates are a poor tool to measure system performance. Maybe Koveleski should spend some time on researching a story before he goes off half cocked, but I digress. Bledsoe also mentions the 4 minute time frame. He also says the magic words- Are US taxpayers ready to pay for an EMS system that has a 4-minute or less response time? I think not. Please substitute Denver for US. Also then this little gem-Researchers in England have also found problems with the magic 8-minute response time. They concluded that the 8-minute response time is not evidence-based and is putting patients and ambulance crews at risk.

I do believe in what Denver Health does, I just think that there are methods besides this forum that would create more solidarity and achieve more. I’m also not saying that merge is the only answer, what about returning the employees of the division to CSA but allowing DHMC to retain medical control so that they maintain whatever grant programs and funding they receive by having us? What about a mill levy so that we can put more ambulances on the street or supply stations around town?

Solidarity for what and with whom? By going to CSA what do employees gain? What does the Authority gain? I don’t know enough about the authority as to mill levy’s, my guess is if they could do them they would have by now. As for ambulances on street, how many more? Based on what? (At this point I will say I am in agreement as to more. I just don’t think you would need twice as many, which a merger with DFD would entail.) At what cost to your skills ( I will be concerned with them on your behalf, you stick to what is important-bed, station, crews)? At what cost to the city/authority? Would you be willing to work with an EMT-B? if not why not?

I do appreciate your opinions but if you’re not willing to truly own them they don’t hold that much validity, I know: “Why are you responding, then?”

To the extent that I can, I do own them. I am not going to loose a job over them though. Since we are on this tack though, you owe me an answer. Are you holding your cohorts Sawyer and Sproul to the same standard of ownership? Yea I know the disguises weren’t all that great, technically they are still anonymous sources per Tony Koveleski.

Response: If the union is so impotent, why do you have so much to say about it?

Simple, I am not convinced that today anymore than 12 years ago that the DPA/3634 have the support of the majority of its membership and certainly not that of the line employees. I am also willing to bet that the union doesn’t represent even half the division. So it makes it a little difficult to swallow that the union is seen as the voice of the paramedic division. Lastly, I think Bob Petre is a clown.

φ Veritas