P3.K211: Increasing New York City Poison Control Center Awareness and Access in the Pediatric Emergency Department

Background: The New York City Poison Control Center (NYC PCC) serves the five boroughs of NYC and its surrounding counties to provide a free, phone-based hotline service to the public on information and recommendations regarding poisonous and environmental exposures. Raising awareness of the availability of these services to the public may assist in injury prevention by household toxic exposures and medication overdosings. Children are at high risk for accidental toxic exposures and families with children should be aware and have access to these services. Despite the availability of these services, barriers such as awareness of the program, language, and phone access may prevent families from contacting NYC PCC.

Project Description: We aim to provide awareness of the services provided by NYC PCC and increase accessibility of their services to families during their visits to the pediatric emergency department (PED). This is a pilot project conducted in a PED of an inner-city, public hospital over a two-week period in August 2023. All project educators were briefed to use a script to approach families, regardless of the reasons for their PED visits. Participating families who were fluent in either English or Spanish were surveyed on their prior awareness of the services provided by NYC PCC and if families know how to reach the PCC hotline. A 2-minute video on NYC PCC services in Spanish or English was developed and shown to participating families, followed by a post-video survey using a combination of yes/no questions and Likert scales on their awareness of the services available by NYC PCC. Data were analyzed using Chi-square and test for differences in proportions. Educators assisted in entering the NYC PCC phone number into phones of families, if permitted.

Discussion: 108 families participated in the project, with a majority reporting Spanish as their primary language (Figure 1). Participants who reported understanding of when to call the NYC PCC increased from 20% to 96% (p < 0.05) after viewing our educational video (Table 1). 93% of all participants reported feeling comfortable calling the NYC PCC after the education session. The average time spent for the entire education session, including the video and surveys, was 6.5 minutes. The NYC PCC phone number was saved in 79 mobile devices.

Conclusion: Our educational sessions increased participants’ awareness of the services provided by NYC PCC and assisted families in increasing access to these services by saving the hotline phone number onto their phones. We hope this pilot project demonstrates that through outreach and education in different languages, recommendations and information for possible toxic exposures may be more readily available to all populations.