The Washington Poison Center’s Hospital Fair Share program requests individual hospitals and healthcare systems in Washington state make an annual community benefit investment to help fund continued access to poison control services for their institution, as well as poison prevention education and resources within the hospital or healthcare system’s local service area.
In 2020, the Washington Poison Center handled over 138,000 calls from emergency room physicians, nurses, and other healthcare providers and created over 67,000 patient records.
The Washington Poison Center provides hospitals and healthcare systems with:
- Unlimited access to board-certified physician medical toxicologists for telephone consultations, 24/7/365.
- Direct access 1 (800) number dedicated to hospitals and first responders for immediate support from expert-level certified specialists in poison information (CSPI).
- Translation services available in over 200 languages for non-English speaking patients.
- Wraparound care for patients from dedicated call center staff until case is resolved.
- Clinical education training from our board-certified physician medical toxicologists on a variety of timely and relevant healthcare topics affecting the delivery of healthcare.
- Public Health Education within the hospital or healthcare system’s service delivery area focused on education, prevention and harm reduction.
- Public Health Alerts on how to diagnose, treat and manage emerging public health issues like opioid overdoses, synthetic cannabinoid contamination, shellfish poisoning and more.
- Real-time data surveillance that identifies emerging public health trends.
The Hospital Fair Share program has helped the Washington Poison Center continue to provide vital public health safety net resources for all Washingtonians, and in 2020, the community benefit investment made by hospitals and healthcare systems resulted in the following:
- 92% of all cases, when the poison center was contacted first, were managed at home, lessening the impact on emergency transport services and emergency room departments.
- 72.2% of all callers surveyed would have gone to the emergency room, their physician, or called 911 if the Washington Poison Center services were not available.
- 43% of all calls concerned a child under 6-years-old.
- 10.5 % of all calls concerned adults over 60-years-old.
- 20 % of calls received were from healthcare professionals.
- 267 Medical professionals received clinical education from our board certified medical toxicologists.
- 4,314 people were reached through Public Health Education through train the trainer presentations, industry association conferences, employer health fairs, community fairs and activities, teacher training, parent training, classroom and school assemblies.
- 59 medical residents, fellows, pharmacists, nurses and paramedic students participated in a Washington Poison Center Clinical Rotation.
- 203,848 Mr. Yuk stickers were distributed throughout Washington State.
For more information about the Hospital Fair Share Program, contact Katie Von Derau, Managing Director, vonderau@wapc.org.