Milwaukee EMSA—Milwaukee, Wis.

The Milwaukee County EMS serves an area composed of 19 municipalities, covering 241 square miles. The agency is made up of 12 municipal fire departments, who all share common protocols and provide care under the same medical director. The EMS system emergently treats over 95,000 people per year, 13 percent of which are under the age of 21 years. Milwaukee County EMS transports patients to 15 affiliated paramedic-receiving hospitals which participate in the Milwaukee Emergency Medicine Research Consortium, an experienced and proven research association that provides continued research interventions, monitoring, follow-up, and/or hospital medical record review for patients entered in out-of-hospital trials.

Dr. Browne serves as the pediatric medical director for the Milwaukee County EMS system. He is also an assistant professor of pediatrics in the Division of Emergency Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and is board-certified in both pediatrics and pediatric emergency medicine. Dr. Browne’s previous research endeavors include assessment of pediatric injuries resulting from motor vehicle crashes and use of computed tomography to identify pediatric cervical spine injuries.

The academic adviser for the Milwaukee County EMS affiliate is Jennifer Hernandez-Meier, PhD, MSW. Dr. Hernandez-Meier is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW). From 2013 through 2018, she served as a research scientist in the Comprehensive Injury Center at MCW. Dr. Hernandez-Meier received her doctorate and Master of Social Work from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has extensive experience with directing federally-funded research and evaluation. Her research interests include violence and injury prevention; and the epidemiology and prevention of, and policies and treatment for alcohol and substance use.

Dan Pojar serves as the EMS Division director for Milwaukee County Office of Emergency Management. He works closely with 14 municipal fire departments with approximately 1,400 EMS providers and oversees education, quality assurance and data management. Pojar also works very closely with the Medical College of Wisconsin as they provide the contracted medical direction for the EMS system.  Pojar is a board-certified flight paramedic with his EMS career starting in 2007.  He also received his BSEMS degree from Creighton University in 2010. 

Nicole Fumo is a research coordinator at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Research and public health interests include etiology of health disparities among sexual minority communities, monitoring and evaluation of community-based programs, opioid misuse and overdose prevention, and quantitative research methods. She has worked on over 10 research protocols as part of her role. 

The members of the EMSA Field Provider Advisory Committee are all EMS providers, have an interest in EMS research and have previously participated in prehospital research. They have experience with all aspects of EMS study development including prehospital randomized clinical trials.