A Day in the Life of Your Poison Center

A Snapshot of the Calls We Receive

Have you ever wondered why someone would call a Poison Center? Or, what kind of calls would a Poison Center handle? The full PDF version of "A Day in the Life of Your Poison Center" captures the various scenarios of calls that a Poison Center may manage on any given day and demonstrates how a call to the Poison Center may begin.

Below is a snapshot of “A Day in the Life of Your Poison Center”. On the particular day this log was recorded, the Cincinnati Children’s Drug & Poison Control Center took 149 calls. To get an idea of the scope of these calls, check out the numbers below.

The 149 calls taken included:

  • 63 Calls regarding children
  • 51 Calls regarding adults
  • 33 Calls from Emergency Rooms
  • 26 Calls to identify medication
  • 4 Calls regarding pets
  • 3 Calls from law enforcement officers

Download the full version of "A Day in the Life of Your Poison Center"

What We Do

The Cincinnati Drug & Poison Information Center (DPIC) is committed to reducing the incidence and severity of poisoning injury through early intervention, treatment, education and research. To accomplish this mission, DPIC provides 24/7 hotline support to 5.8 million Ohioans within 24 counties at no cost to the caller. The helpline also supports questions regarding medications, household safety, and a wide variety of other topics. It doesn’t need to be an emergency to call the poison control helpline.

Poison control centers are our nation’s primary defense against injury and death from poisonings. Ohio’s poison centers respond to a toxic or venomous exposure roughly every five minutes. Poisonings involve all age groups and just about anything that can be found in our surrounding environments. In most poisoning situations, DPIC is able to effectively prevent or reduce the need for medical care and hospitalization. This vital service saves Ohioans over 60 million dollars in unnecessary healthcare spending every year.