Wisconsin Statutes & Annotations
Chapter 250 - Health; administration and supervision.
250.04 - Powers and duties of the department.

250.04 Powers and duties of the department.
(1) The department has general supervision throughout the state of the health of citizens and shall study especially the vital statistics of the state and use the analysis of the vital statistics for health planning. The department may, upon due notice, enter upon and inspect private property. The department has power to execute what is reasonable and necessary for the prevention and suppression of disease. The department may or, if required, shall advise public boards or officers in regard to heating and ventilation of any public building or institution. The department may investigate the cause and circumstances of any special or unusual disease or mortality or inspect any public building and may do any act necessary for the investigation.
(2)
(a) The department possesses all powers necessary to fulfill the duties prescribed in the statutes and to bring action in the courts for the enforcement of public health statutes and rules.
(b) If local health departments fail to enforce public health statutes or rules, the department may enforce those statutes and rules. If the department does this, the county, city or village for which the local health department has jurisdiction shall reimburse the department for expenses that the department incurs in enforcing communicable disease statutes and rules.
(3)
(a) The department shall establish and maintain surveillance activities sufficient to detect any occurrence of acute, communicable or chronic diseases and threat of occupational or environmental hazards, injuries or changes in the health of mothers and children.
(b)
1. The department shall analyze occurrences, trends and patterns of acute, communicable or chronic diseases, maternal and child health, injuries and occupational and environmental hazards and distribute information based on the analyses.
2. The department shall, in cooperation with local health departments, maintain a public health data system.
3. The department may conduct investigations, studies, experiments and research pertaining to any public health problems which are a cause or potential cause of morbidity or mortality and methods for the prevention or amelioration of those public health problems. For the conduct of the investigations, studies, experiments and research, the department may on behalf of the state accept funds from any public or private agency, organization or person. It may conduct the investigations, studies, experiments and research independently or by contract or in cooperation with any public or private agency, organization or person including any political subdivision of the state. Individual questionnaires or surveys shall be treated as confidential patient health care records under ss. 146.81 to 146.835, but the information in those questionnaires and surveys may be released in statistical summaries.
4. The department may use hospital emergency room and inpatient health care records, abstracts of these records and information the state or federal government collects to correlate exposure to certain occupational and high risk environments with resulting acute or chronic health problems. If the department finds that an occupational health hazard exists, it shall disseminate its findings and promote efforts to educate employees and employers about the health hazard.
(c) The department shall publish an annual maternal and child health report, including morbidity and mortality indicators for the state, regions of the state, counties, certain cities and subpopulations of the state.
(3m) The department may charge a reasonable fee for the analysis and provision of data under this section.
(4)
(a) The department shall administer programs for the control and prevention of public health problems.
(b) The department shall be responsible for follow-up investigations of unusual occurrences of acute, communicable and chronic diseases, occupational and environmental hazards, unusual injuries and unusual changes in maternal and child health.
(5) Where the use of any pesticide results in a threat to the public health, the department shall take all measures necessary to prevent morbidity or mortality.
(6) The department shall provide consultation, technical assistance and training regarding public health to local health departments, community organizations and others.
(7) The department may promulgate and enforce rules and issue and enforce orders governing the duties of all local health officers and local boards of health and relating to any subject matter under the department's supervision that are necessary to provide efficient administration and to protect health. Whoever violates a rule or order specified under this subsection shall be fined not less than $10 nor more than $100 for each offense, unless a different penalty is provided.
(8) The department may administer oaths, certify to official acts, issue subpoenas and compel the attendance of witnesses and the production of papers, books, documents and testimony. Witness fees and mileage shall be paid from the appropriation under s. 20.435 (1) (a), but no witness subpoenaed at the instance of parties other than the department is entitled to payment of fees or mileage, unless the department certifies that his or her testimony was material.
(9) The department may establish, equip and operate a state branch laboratory of hygiene in a city accessible to physicians and local health officers in the northern part of the state to conduct bacteriological and chemical examinations of material from the various contagious and infectious diseases or material from suspected contagious and infectious diseases of persons and animals when public health is concerned, if suitable quarters for the laboratory are offered to the state free of charge for rent, light, heat and janitor service. The department may also establish and aid in maintaining in conjunction with the cities of the state not more than 7 state cooperative laboratories. All of the cooperative laboratories shall be operated in the manner and under the conditions that the department establishes in rules that the department may promulgate.
(10) The department may investigate and supervise the sanitary conditions of all charitable, curative, reformatory and penal institutions, all detention homes for children and the hospitals and institutions that are organized for the purposes set forth in s. 58.01. The department may visit the jails, municipal prisons, houses of correction and all other places in which persons convicted or suspected of crime or mentally ill persons are confined and ascertain the sanitary conditions of those places.
(11) The department shall investigate any hospital which is found by a panel established under s. 655.02, 1983 stats., or by a court to have been responsible for negligent acts.
(12) The department is designated the state health planning and development agency.
(12m) In public health planning, the department shall collaborate with local health departments on an ongoing basis and shall consult with private sector entities, as defined in s. 229.41 (9), and with public sector entities, as defined in s. 229.41 (10).
(13) The department shall provide information on the prevention, detection, diagnosis and treatment of blastomycosis in areas of this state with a high incidence of blastomycosis.
(14)
(a) Subject to the availability of funds and to par. (b), the department may provide or fund emergency services or assistance to victims of s. 940.302 (2) or 948.051.
(b) The department may provide or fund emergency services or assistance to a victim only for the following time periods:
1. If the victim is cooperating with the appropriate law enforcement agencies, from the time the victim is identified until 60 days after the disposition of the trial.
2. If the victim is not cooperating with the appropriate law enforcement agencies, a total of 60 days.
History: 1971 c. 100 s. 23; 1973 c. 90; 1975 c. 37, 39; 1975 c. 94 s. 91 (9); 1975 c. 292, 422; 1977 c. 29, 418; 1979 c. 221, 229, 334, 355; 1981 c. 20, 214, 257; 1983 a. 203; 1985 a. 340; 1987 a. 27 ss. 1786, 1787, 3200 (24); 1987 a. 399; 1989 a. 173, 264; 1991 a. 39, 178, 269; 1993 a. 16; 1993 a. 27 s. 170, 171, 173, 174, 176, 178, 179, 180, 183, 187, 250, 452 to 456; 1993 a. 209, 491; 1997 a. 27; 2005 a. 198; 2007 a. 116.
Neither s. 140.05 [now this section] or regulations adopted under sub. (3) [now sub. (7)] are safety statutes that create an independent basis for a negligence action. Johnson v. City of Darlington, 160 Wis. 2d 418, 466 N.W.2d 233 (Ct. App. 1991).