Provision of High Quality Cost-Effective Poisons Information

Introduction: The New Zealand National Poisons Centre (NPC) was established in 1964 and provides poisons information to New Zealand (population 4 million) and, recently, a number of Poisons Centres worldwide. In an effort to provide high quality cost effective poisons information the NPC developed its own Internet accessible database, TOXINZ (www.toxinz.com) and backed this with a range of mechanisms to ensure its quality. Background: TOXINZ currently contains poisoning treatment recommendations for the management of some 134,000 chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, plants and hazardous creatures. Simple first-aid advice is free for the public, but a subscription is required to access full medical treatment recommendations. An exception is made for recognised Poisons Information Centres who are provided free entry on application. There are currently 33 Centres in 27 countries that have gained access to TOXINZ in this way. Considerable effort has gone into the quality assurance of the content of this resource including extensive research of the toxicology literature to develop monographs; robust internal mechanisms to review submissions; the establishment of an international editorial board; two yearly (2001, 2003, 2005) quality assurance surveys of sentinel Emergency Department database users; and regular analysis of poison centre enquiry statistics. When surveyed in 2005, 88.5% of New Zealand Emergency Department users considered TOXINZ good or excellent, and clearly preferred its use to other information sources.