| Author/s | Jackson G, Lupton D, Bradberry S, Spears R, Cooper G, Thompson J, Eddleston M |
| Year | 2013 |
| Type of publication | Conference proceeding |
| Link | https://doi.org/10.3109/15563650.2013.785188 |
| Abstract | Objective: The UK National Poisons Information Service (NPIS) previously reported plans to establish real-time communications with UK healthcare professionals when agents of interest are accessed via TOXBASE®, the UK's primary poisons information database.1 The Urgent-Alerting system has now been operational for over six-months and a retrospective analysis of data has been conducted to demonstrate system utility. Methods: Within five-minutes of a tagged TOXBASE® entry being accessed an email alert is automatically generated detailing which TOXBASE® user accessed which agent. NPIS Units in Birmingham, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Newcastle monitor all alerts 24/7 and act immediately when required. Currently over 140 TOXBASE® entries are tagged as being of interest; the alerting tag is not visible to the user. Data collected between the 1/04/2012 – 30/09/2012 has been analysed. Results: 5359 alerts were received; 951 alerts were patient-related, 188 users provided contact details and 124 (66%) were followed-up successfully. Reasons for an unsuccessful follow-up include failed contact attempts or user had already contacted NPIS directly. NPIS identified 264 clusters of potentially related alerts (defined as five or more alerts to the same agent on the same day) and followed-up 71 of these. Seventy-five per cent of successfully followed-up alerts originated from hospital A&E departments. Agents most commonly accessed in association with patient-related exposures were carbon monoxide (21%), chlorine (21%) and ammonia (7%). The most common types of exposure were accidental (68%) inhalations (54%) that occurred at home (42%). Conclusion: It is likely that the number of patient-related TOXBASE® accesses is under-reported by TOXBASE® users. However, this does not impact on the ability of the alerting system to act as a surveillance system. NPIS can act immediately when clusters of alerts are identified and thereby consider patients presenting with specific poisonings across different regions of the UK as a whole. The alerting system will soon include Trending-Alerts, which means NPIS will be notified when access levels to agents of interest exceed a relevant threshold, allowing NPIS to monitor accesses to a considerably larger number of TOXBASE® entries and respond accordingly. Reference
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