The impact of a poison control center on the length of hospital stay for patients with poisoning

While previous research suggests that poison control centers (PCCs) significantly reduce the number of emergency room visits and resultant health care costs for poisonings, little is known regarding the potential impact of the PCC on the length of hospital stay. The aim of this study was to examine whether assistance from a PCC is associated with a shorter length of hospital stay for patients admitted with poisonings. The cases reported to our PCC were matched over a period of 1 yr with the hospital admissions E-coded as poisonings in the Uniform Billing (UB) data maintained by the state health department. The length of hospital stay was then compared between the cases for which a PCC provided assistance (matches) and the cases for which a PCC was not contacted. During the study period, there were 32,245 hospitalizations for poisoning in the UB data and 52,498 poisonings reported to the PCC. The matching process yielded 1719 nonfatal cases. The length of hospital stay for patients who received assistance from a PCC ranged from 0 to 126 d (median = 2.0) and was significantly different compared to a range of 0 to 220 days (median = 5.0) for cases that were never called in to a PCC. The results of this study suggest that patients admitted to hospitals with poisonings who receive PCC assistance have measurable reductions in average hospital stay. Such a decrease may translate into substantial savings in health care costs and resources.