EMS Agencies

Emergency Medical Services Agencies Serving Portage CountyEmergency Medical Services Logo

Portage County is proud to provide high-quality Emergency Medical Services (EMS) to its citizens and visitors.

Emergency Medical Services in Portage County are provided by a blended county-wide system of emergency medical responders, ambulance services, and other highly trained professionals.

Ambulance Services

  • Amherst Fire District
  • Plover Fire Department
  • Stevens Point Fire Department

Portage County contracts with Amherst, Plover, and Stevens Point to provide paramedic-level care and ambulance transport across the County. The Town of Grant independently has chosen to contract with United EMR.

Emergency Medical Responders

  • Rudolph
  • Dewey
  • Sharon
  • Hull
  • Rosholt
  • Stockton
  • Plover
  • Bancroft/Pine Grove
  • Almond
  • Amherst
  • Grant

Emergency Medical Responders (EMRs), formerly known as medical first responders, are volunteers within their communities and are certified by the State of Wisconsin. Many of the responders are also trained to the Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) level or beyond. They are dispatched when an ambulance is called and most often arrive first to provide care and sometimes life-saving interventions such as rescue breathing, defibrillation, or bleeding control before the ambulance arrives. EMRs and EMTs can also administer some emergency medications. After the ambulance arrives, EMRs continue to assist in patient care and play an important role in scene management, lifting assistance, and safety.

McCain Foods and Worzalla Publishing also have EMR groups within their organizations.

The Emergency Medical Responder groups welcome new members. Contact the Sheriff's Office Emergency Medical Services Division at 715-346-1399 for more information about volunteering.

Medical Direction

Medical oversight for our system is provided by the physicians at Ministry Saint Michael's Hospital Emergency Department, one of whom, Dr. Michael Clark, MD, serves as our EMS medical director. He actively participates in the planning, development, training, and quality improvement of the system.

Communications

All emergency calls for help in Portage County go to the Portage County Sheriff's Office Communications Center. Highly trained public safety telecommunicators follow established protocols and procedures to obtain important information from callers, dispatch the appropriate emergency resources, and then stay on the phone to give the caller life-saving medical instructions when needed. The dispatchers maintain communication with the responders throughout the call and help coordinate other resources or information as needed.

Quality

Portage County EMS is dedicated to providing quality response and care. In 2009, the County developed the EMS Coordinator role to support the ambulance services, emergency medical responders, and the medical director with quality initiatives. The system currently has five categories of performance benchmarks around which its quality improvement projects are developed:

  • Response time reliability
  • Clinical excellence
  • Customer satisfaction
  • Operational safety
  • Organizational culture of cooperation and mutual support