LAPD Officer Wellness Program, with Coronavirus Focus

Jimmy Baldea has been a first responder since 1993. He resides in New York City, and part-time in Stratton, Vermont. He serves as a Deputy Sheriff at the Rutland County Sheriff’s Department (VT), and volunteers as an EMT-B at the Nassau County Department of Health Medical Reserves (NY). He is a pioneer in the field of first responder healthcare. He founded the American eHealth Collaborative in 2014, which develops real-time vital sign monitoring solutions and telehealth programs for first responders. He founded the Wellness Institute of Public Safety in 2018, a 501(c)(3) dedicated to longitudinal health research for public safety workers. He is the developer and administrator of the wellness program of the labor union that serves the officers of the Los Angeles Police Department. He created the LAPD’s Top 10 Health Ailments list, and their pre-disaster benchmark police health data table. His work focuses on preventing job-related injuries, and creating rehabilitation improvements to workers comp. He is credited with “How 250 LAPD Officers Lost and Kept Off 3,000 Pounds,” and his work has been published in multiple police periodicals. He has advocated for the formation of AMA & CMS medical billing codes specific to the needs of first responders, and has further advocated for the addition of First Responder Wellness to the Workforce category of the CDC’s Public Health Gateway. He humbly and proudly helps essential workers to improve their overall states of health, in a manner that reduces preventable municipal expenditures, in stigma-free environments.

Mark Cronin is a veteran Los Angeles Police Officer who is one of nine elected Directors representing 10,000 LAPD Officers with their benefits, wages and working conditions as a Director for their union - The Los Angeles Police Protective League. Mark has been on the job for over 28 years, and prior to becoming an LAPPL Director spent eighteen years as a Motorcycle Officer in the ‘City of Angels’ among other assignments. He was hit on his motor in 2006, and spent a year recuperating from having his spine fused as a result. Because of this negative personal experience, Mark has devoted the rest of his career to enhancing wellness for his members and creating and overseeing a new Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) sworn workers compensation carve-out that provides quality care when an Officer is hurt on-duty to get them up and running as quickly as possible. LAPD’s Sworn ADR carve-out is the largest in the State of California and their model has been recently duplicated in the Cities of San Francisco and Oakland. The LAPPL ADR has had an unprecedented positive impact on LAPD Officers, having overseen the management of 5,500 injured LAPD Officers to date since its start date May 2018. To date, out of 5,500 claims, only one has gone to mediation and the LAPPL ADR has had no formal arbitrations and nothing has gone to the Workers Comp Appeals Board. Disputes have been drastically reduced. ADR actuarial results so far have measured cost savings to the City of Los Angeles of approx. 1-5% out of a 92.6 million dollar annual Workers Comp budget.