Impact of electronic poisons information on poison centre call numbers

Since their inception in the 1950s Poisons Information Centres (PICs) have provided telephone advice to both the lay public and health professionals. Over the ensuing 55 years, great advances in information technology have occurred allowing dissemination of information by means other than telephone. Such advances have not however been widely adopted by PICs for the delivery of core information service, despite both CD-ROM and Internet poisons information resources being highly regarded by health professionals. It is possible a barrier to wider implementation of advanced information delivery systems is concern over funding implications should an individual PIC's call numbers decline as a result. From September 1998, a CD-ROM mounted poisons information database was made available to New Zealand EDs by subscription; this was subsequently replaced by the TOXINZ Internet accessible database in September 2002. As these electronic databases were very poorly adopted by general practitioners during this period, the impact on telephone calls from EDs and GPs can be usefully compared. This comparison will indicate the impact of information technologies on PIC telephone call volume.