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Abstract
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BACKGROUND: Since establishing the first poison control centers (PCCs), there is a still ongoing debate regarding their relevance and financing. The present study aims to analyze whether a regional PCC can reduce the economic burden associated with utilization of health care structures due to low-risk poison exposures on the German health care system.
METHODS: A decision-tree based cost-benefit analysis comparing a situation utilizing PCC consultation versus a hypothetical situation without PCC consultation for low-risk poison exposures from the German health care system's perspective was conducted. The model inputs were obtained by a representative telephone survey of lay callers supplemented by empirical PCC and literature data. A probabilistic and deterministic sensitivity analysis with varying input variables was performed to prove the robustness of the findings.
RESULTS: In the underlying telephone survey, data of 378 lay callers could be considered and included in the decision tree model. As a result, the mean costs for handling one low-risk poison exposure case were €41.99 utilizing PCC consultation compared to €145.92 without PCC consultation, indicating a cost-benefit ratio of 3.48 for the existence of the PCC. The sensitivity analysis proved that the outcome of the decision analysis does not change significantly with varying inputs.
CONCLUSION: The existence of PCCs relieve the burden on other health care providers and reduce health care costs to a relevant extent. Therefore, PCCs should be considered as an important supporting structure of the German health care system.
Language: en |