Wisconsin Department of Health Services
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| Agency overview | |
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| Formed | 1967 |
| Preceding agencies |
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| Jurisdiction | Wisconsin |
| Headquarters | Madison, Wisconsin |
| Agency executives |
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| Parent agency | State of Wisconsin |
| Website | http://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/ |
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (WisDHS) is a governmental agency of the U.S. state of Wisconsin responsible for maintaining public health. It administers a wide range of services in the state and at state institutions, regulates hospitals and care providers, and supervises and consults with local public health agencies. Its responsibilities include public health; mental health and substance abuse; long-term support and care; services to people with disabilities, medical assistance, and children’s services; aging programs; physical and developmental disability services; blindness disability programs; operation of care and treatment facilities; quality assurance programs; nutrition supplementation programs; medical assistance; and health care for low-income families, elderly, and the disabled.
It has primary responsibility for administering Medicaid and Medicare within the state. As of 2012, the department is administered by Secretary Kitty Rhoades. The DHS secretary is a cabinet member appointed by the Governor of Wisconsin and confirmed by the Wisconsin Senate.
The Wisconsin DHS is made up of three executive offices and five divisions organized according to function. WisDHS's main office is located in Madison, and it maintains regional offices throughout the state.
The Department of Health Services combines administration and supervision of many state and local functions that had developed separately in the 1800s. In the early days of statehood, public health was primarily a function of local governments. For more than two decades after statehood, Wisconsin created separate governing boards and institutions for the care of prisoners; juveniles; and blind, deaf, and mentally ill persons. By 1871, there were six such institutions. The first attempt to institute overall state supervision of these services came in 1871 when the legislature creatied the State Board of Charities and Reform. Its duties included examination of the operations of state institutions and their boards and investigation of practices in local asylums, jails, and schools for the blind and deaf.
In 1876, the legislature established the State Board of Health to “study the vital statistics of this state, and endeavor to make intelligent and profitable use of the collected records of death and sickness among the people.” The board was directed to “make sanitary investigations and inquiries respecting the causes of disease, and especially of epidemics; the causes of mortality, and the effects of localities, employments, conditions, ingesta, habits and circumstances on the health of the people.” This directive still defines much of the work done in public health by the department. Later legislation required the board to take responsibility for tuberculosis care (1905), preventing blindness in infants (1909), and to inspecting water and sewerage systems to prevent typhoid and dysentery (1919). In addition, the agency then licensed restaurants, health facilities, barbers, funeral directors and embalmers.
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