Poison Center Community of Practice: Perspectives on Collaboration Between Poison Centers and Health Departments

Brief Summary
The Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) identified data collected by the nation’s poison centers (PCs) as an important tool for all hazard exposure and illness surveillance. CSTE and American Association of Poison Control Center (AAPCC) members were interested in building a community of practice (CoP) to share experiences, identify best practices, and facilitate relationships among federal, state and local health departments (HDs) and PCs. CDC held an initial roundtable discussion at the CSTE meeting in June 2010, and included participants from federal, state, and local agencies and HDs, and PCs. Another roundtable discussion was held at the 2012 CSTE meeting to review previous accomplishments, identify important activities to undertake and provide future direction for the CoP. During 2012, the CoP membership initiated a project to characterize the state of collaboration among PCs and HDs. The project also sought to identify barriers or obstacles towards optimal collaboration between both PCs and HDs. Two surveys were created by CoP leadership and were customized for either a poison center managing director or a state epidemiologist. Surveys were administered via a free, online data collection tool which was accessible by a link emailed to appropriate PC and HD officials identified by AAPCC and CSTE. The surveys included questions about infrastructure, current data sharing capacities, funding, scope of existing collaboration, impediments, and willingness to bolster collaboration. This roundtable discussion will build upon previous sessions by describing 2012 accomplishments and planned improvements to the CoP,   followed by a discussion of the results of the surveys conducted by AAPCC and CSTE. During the review of survey results, we will consider the following questions:  

• ·       What is the existing collaboration between PCs and HDs?
• ·       Do PCs and HDs feel that the collaboration between PCs and HDs need to be strengthened?
• ·       Collectively, what are the barriers to collaboration between PCs and HDs?
• ·       What are the possible solutions to address these identified barriers to strengthen PC and HD collaboration?

The membership hopes to have tangible next steps in addressing identified barriers, and this roundtable discussion will be used in guiding the next steps for the CoP.  Objectives

• To provide an overview of activities and accomplishments of the CoP over the last year
• To discuss the results of the PC and HD surveys
• To discuss ways to overcome barriers identified by the PC and HD surveys