The Washington Poison Center’s Hospital Engagement program, previously Hospital Fair Share, requests individual hospitals and healthcare systems make a community benefit investment to help fund continued access to poison control services, poison prevention education, and resources within the hospital or healthcare system’s local service area. We felt Hospital Engagement, which encompasses our relationship as partners in healthcare, was a more appropriate program title as our partners include individual hospitals and healthcare systems in Washington State.
In 2023, the Washington Poison Center handled over 120,000 calls from emergency room physicians, nurses, and other healthcare providers and created over 62,166 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 Engagement program has helped the Washington Poison Center continue to provide vital public health safety net resources for all Washingtonians, and in 2023, the community benefit investment made by hospitals and healthcare systems resulted in the following:
- 91% of all cases, when the poison center was contacted first, were managed at home, preventing a costly trip to the hospital & saving Washingtonians, insurance companies, & Apple Health over $53.4 million in healthcare costs
- 68% 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.
- 35% of all calls concerned a child under 5years or under
- 21% of all calls concerned adults over 60-years-old
- 25.7% of calls received were from healthcare professionals
- 21,000 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
For more information about the Hospital Engagement Program, contact Michele Meaker, Director of Development and Grant Management
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