With the continuing rise of health-care costs, the Oklahoma Poison Control Center provides an invaluable service to the state of Oklahoma and its residents, offering treatment recommendations that keep 80 percent of its callers safely at home and, therefore, preventing unnecessary visits to already burdened emergency rooms and use of health-care services.

 

Last year, the Oklahoma Poison Control Center received more than 55,000 phone calls. Almost 42 percent of the calls were from individuals with government-paid insurance. Approximately 11 percent of the callers were uninsured.

 

To illustrate the importance of the poison center’s services, take the following example. A distraught, middle-aged man called the poison center seeking information about what medical effects he would suffer after consuming more than a pint of antifreeze. The poison control specialist who received the call was able to convince the man that he needed immediate help. The specialist arranged transport for the man to the nearest emergency room and provided treatment recommendations to the hospital. Due to the fast actions of a poison center specialist, paramedics and physicians, the man received rapid treatment and quickly recovered from a potentially deadly exposure.

 

While people may recognize the poison center’s role in providing treatment recommendations, its other services – its role in research development and publishing – often go unnoticed as they are not highly publicized, said Lee McGoodwin, managing director of the Oklahoma Poison Control Center.

 

The center also is a teaching source for pharmacy and nursing students, and provides educational and clinical presentations to laypersons and health-care professionals. By surveying patterns of symptoms reported by patients who call the center, specialists at the Oklahoma Poison Control Center and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can spot possible areas in the state where chemical spills or terrorist activities have occurred. The center also collects essential information – the who, what, when, where and why – of poisonings. Such data help the center inform prevention groups and state residents of poisoning problems.

 

Remember: Always call the poison center if you suspect that a poisoning has occurred. The Oklahoma Poison Control Center operates 24 hours a day, every day. Highly trained pharmacists and nursing staff provide confidential poison information and treatment advice to Oklahoma residents and health-care professionals. The poison center is a program of the University of Oklahoma College of Pharmacy and is located within the Children’s Hospital at OU MEDICAL CENTER.

 

For more information, log on to www.oklahomapoison.org. To contact the poison center, call (800) 222-1222. Oklahoma City-area residents can call (405) 271-5454.