Committee discusses regional EMS study and subcommittee plan; chiefs to meet

Washington County — County staff updated the Public Safety Committee in March 2025 about ongoing work to develop a regional emergency medical services system after a study recommended regionalization.

Mr. Hussein, presenting the update, said the county is moving forward with "the extensive concept, if you will, moving forward to create a regional...regional EMS system." He told the committee a subcommittee made up of fire chiefs from career, combination and volunteer departments is drafting a strategic plan based on recommendations from health-care strategists, and that a county chiefs meeting would discuss the work the next day.

Staff also provided committee members with a spreadsheet analysis of municipality-level data to support decision-making. "It's numbers. Numbers tell a story," Hussein said, adding that the document gives a "deeper dive" into each municipality and is intended to help supervisors understand area-by-area variation.

The update included an example from West Bend Fire, whose incident data come from a separate system called FirstView; staff noted differences in data sources and warned members not to treat the materials as final decisions. Committee members asked whether fire chiefs and departments generally support regionalization; Hussein said it was premature to generalize but that at the subcommittee level "they're working together very well" and that the chief-led group was "well received."

No formal committee action to adopt a regional EMS plan was taken; staff asked members to review the analysis and return questions at future meetings. The committee set a follow-up meeting and expected additional information on the study and subcommittee recommendations.