From Mercy Health:
What is MD-1?
We get asked this a lot!
Mercyhealth MD-1 is 24/7/365 physician staffed prehospital response vehicle available to respond with EMS and assist with patients for 15 counties in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois (Rock County, Walworth County, Rockford area). The MD-1 program launched in 2013 has grown to four response vehicles staffed by an EMS medical director, Dr. Jay MacNeal, and seven associate medical directors: Drs. Chris Wistrom, Todd Daniello, Sean Marquis, John Pakiela, Matt Smetana, Jen Gibson-Chambers, and Mitch Sheley.
MD-1 physicians support EMS providers with bedside teaching, training and physician response to critical patients.
All MD-1 physicians have served in fire, EMS or law enforcement at some point during their careers. The physicians also staff our emergency departments to retain their skill set and work on the receiving end of our EMS system.
MD-1 carries equipment and medications not routinely carried or even allowed on paramedic ambulances. Ultrasound, chest tubes, central lines, an amputation kit and junctional tourniquets are just some of the extra equipment carried.
MD-1 does not bill the patient or EMS agency. It transports with EMS to the nearest appropriate destination, and when requested to respond, works with all EMS providers regardless of their medical direction.
Pictured below are MD-1 physicians, Drs. Marquis and Sheley at Country Thunder Music Festival Twin Lakes WI where they provided medical care alongside Medix Ambulance Service crews to festival goers, onsite. This onsite care helped reduce the burden on the local emergency departments where the majority of patients were treated and released, instead of transported to the emergency department.
