Quality assurance: how it can help a poison information center.

Quality assurance (QA) has become a benchmark program for health care in the 1980's. We have developed and implemented an innovative poison information center (PIC) QA program which includes: a peer review system of the PIC's medical records; a detailed routing system of medical records that allows for immediate access to cases involving business and industry accounts, on-going research, hospitalization, etc; and a standardized list of abbreviations for documentation of PIC medical records. The program additionally provides secondary gains of improving internal communications between the PIC staff and provides an excellent source of professional continuing education relative to poison management. QA is an essential program for all PIC's.