HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016 05-18 Maplewood fire department assistant chief Mike Mondor recommended for promotion MAPLEWOOD REVIEW5/18/2016 Maplewood Fire Department assistant chief Mike Mondor recommended for promotion I Lillie Suburban Newspapers - LillieNews.com
Maplewood Fire Department assistant chief
Mike Mondor recommended for promotion
Submitted by admin on Wed, 05/18/2016 - 12:00am
By: Aundrea Kinney
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Maplewood assistant fire chief Mike Mondor appears to be in line for a promotion.
The Maplewood fire/emergency medical services workgroup presented its final report to the city council at a manager workshop May 9.
Public safety director Paul Schnell also presented to the council recommendations for implementing the workgroup's identified
priorities, and one of them was naming Mondor the EMS chief.
Schnell and emergency management director Steve Lukin suggested the promotion, with Scnell explaining it would create a co -
leadership model for the fire department. Lukin would remain fire chief and emergency management director.
This would be the first in a series of four recommendations to be implemented if the council chose to approve them.
"I think thatthe promotion of assistant chief Mondor to chief of EMS is a really smart move and really good for the city," Mayor Nora
Slawik said.
The city council has not yet voted on the promotion, but all of the council members seemed to favorthe action.
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Workgroup
Maplewood Fire Department assistant chief Mike Mondor recommended for promotion I Lillie Suburban Newspapers - LillieNews.com
Schnell and Lukin's recommendations were in response to the information
provided by the Maplewood Fire/EMS workgroup, which met 11 times
between Feb. 22 and April 29. The
Fire/EMS workgroup was created to investigate the service levels and
sustainability of the Maplewood Fire and EMS Department.
The workgroup consists of: assistant city manager Mike Funk; part-time
battalion chief Mike Lochen; one full-time firefighter/paramedic; five residents;
and Lukin, Mondor and Schnell.
"This workgroup was committed to creating a long-term vision for fire/EMS
services," explained Maplewood city manager Melinda Coleman.
The Maplewood Fire Department has 38 part-time firefighters and 15 full-time
firefighters who work out of three stations.
Maplewood operates its own ambulance service through the fire department,
and three advanced life support ambulances are available around the clock.
Each ambulance is staffed with a minimum of one EMT and one paramedic.
Aging population
During their investigation, the workgroup members noted an increasing
demand for the EMS services provided by the Maplewood Fire Department. In
2015, the department had 5,100 emergency calls and 4,300 of those were
EMS calls.
Resident and workgroup member John Donfrio explained that although
Maplewood's overall population is not a growing, the city has a growing
number of elderly residents. This indicates Maplewood has a higher
percentage of residents with medical needs than most suburbs.
According to Schnell, almost 73 percent of the EMS patients are covered by
Medicare or Medicaid, which pay a lower percentage of the total cost and
results in the department carrying out those calls at a lower rate and often
times at an overall loss.
Lukin explained that because of this, the general rates for EMS services have
gone up overtime, and now Maplewood's rates are higherthan many
•
A significant challenge the Maplewood Fire
Department's ambulance service faces is related to
the generational turnover beginning to happen in
the first -ring suburb.
The Maplewood fire/emergency medical services
workgroup told the Maplewood City Council that
EMS calls are increasingly "low acuity," which
means thatthe medical need is less urgent and
would be better served by a different part of the
medical system.
Workgroup member John Donfrio explained most
people of the younger generation will call 911 for
medical problems that previous generations didn't.
He used the example of a child falling out of a tree
and breaking an arm. Older generations of parents
and caregivers would transportthe child themselves
to the hospital instead of calling an ambulance, but
younger generations were taught from a young age
to call 911 for almost any problem.
"A lot of the issue is the lack of access to primary
care, and then they end up utilizing the 911 system
for things that they traditionally should be seeing
their primary care physician for or possibly going to
urgent care for," assistant fire chief Mike Mondor
said.
He also listed several avoidable health problems
that routinely result in ambulance calls, such as
people who simply forget to take their medications,
or have bacterial infections that worsen because
they failed to take all their antibiotic medicine.
Donfrio explained that it costs the same for an
ambulance to come to a house to put a Band-Aid on
someone's finger as it does to assist someone
having a heart attack because the ambulance has to
arrive with the equipment needed for the most
severe cases regardless ofthe actual call. In
addition, the ambulance is obligated to respond to
every call regardless of severity.
"What's happening today in reality is thatwe are
responding to significant quantities of low -acuity
calls," public safety director Paul Schnell said. He
explained that this leaves the departmentwith little
time for risk reduction activities and less coverage
for high -acuity calls for fire or EMS.
communities. He added that many other communities also keep ambulance
rates lower by offsetting the cost with property -tax revenues, which "I didn't realize that a lot of the [ambulance] calls that
Maplewood does not do. they make are people falling," said resident and
workgroup member Jeri Mahre.
Partnership opportunities
While falls can be serious, they can often be
prevented. These falls are something the fire
department would address with community risk
management programs if the staff had the time,
Mahre said.
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5/18/2016 Maplewood Fire Department assistant chief Mike Mondor recommended for promotion I Lillie Suburban Newspapers - LillieNews.com
One possible solution to the department's challenges is partnering with other "We wantto be really clearthat 911 is a fitting
organizations that are willing to offer help in their areas of expertise. The response for a lot of calls," Schnell said. "When it is a
911 call we want people to make those calls, but
Fire/EMS workgroup met with several potential partners and presented four of there are times where 911 can present challenges to
the best options to the city council. us and increases what is otherwise low-risk kind of
demands and low-risk issues that are ultimately
HealthEast is a likely partner because it is already embedded in the being responded to by our paramedics."
Maplewood community with St. John's Hospital. The nonprofit healthcare
provider is particularly interested in enrollment.
HealthEast is less concerned about making ambulance runs at a loss because that interaction forms a relationship with the patient
who may later choose to use one of the HealthEast facilitates for follow-up visits or hospitalization. HealthEast is willing to take on
some of the low -acuity calls to free up Maplewood's paramedics.
The otherthree potential partners are: Health Partners/Regions Hospital, St. Paul Fire and Allina.
Health Partners/Regions Hospital in downtown St. Paul has a trauma center, EMS service and teaching service.
St. Paul Fire has operated a fire -based EMS system for many years, and it has a close working relationship with Regions Hospital.
Allina is a large healthcare system, and it is the leading organization for number of ambulance runs in Minnesota.
The workgroup members said to get a good price on medical supplies, a provider has to buy in quantities the size of a railroad car, so
all of the potential partners suggested a supply chain opportunity to help manage the cost of operations. All potential partners also
pointed out grant opportunities. Health Partners/Regions Hospital offered to help Maplewood with teaching opportunities and medical
direction.
Recommendations
The first recommendation made in response to the workgroup's report was to promote assistant chief Mondorto chief of EMS. He has
been focused on the EMS side of the fire department since he was hired, so he's already doing most of the work thatwould come with
the promotion.
Itwas recommended that after Mondor's promotion, both chiefs Lukin and Mondor work together to develop a written work plan based
on the information gathered by the workgroup. They would present it to the workgroup in six to seven weeks.
All council members mentioned they were supportive of the recommendations.
"The [Maplewood] EMS Department has led the industry in state ofthe art cardiac arrest management practices. They were in the first
five percent in the nation to implement rescue CPR pediatric resuscitation practices," said Sue Allhiser, a Maplewood resident,
business owner and workgroup member.
She added several other noteworthy achievements, which include response times at or below national averages.
"Now we need to take care of the Maplewood Fire Department, so they can continue to take good care of us," Allhiser added.
Aundrea Kinney can be reached at 651-748-7822 or akinneZ@,Llllienews.com.
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