Washington Poison Center

Mission

The Washington Poison Center's mission is to prevent harm from poison through expertise, collaboration, and professional and public education.

Description

The Washington Poison Center (WAPC), a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit, is the poison control center serving the 8+ million residents of Washington State. WAPC's mission and goal is to prevent harm from poisoning through expertise, collaboration, and professional and public education. Overdoses or exposures to toxic substances are the number one cause of accidental death in Washington State. Since 2006, more people die from poison exposure than from auto accidents. The Washington Poison Center provides free, confidential, emergency poison treatment advice to callers from the general public 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In addition to calls from the public, WAPC also answers calls from hospitals, ERs, nursing lines, pharmacies, physicians, and EMTs giving them critical life-saving advice for their patients. WAPC takes over 63,000 calls for help per year and our phones are staffed by physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and poison specialists, who are backed up by physician toxicologists. We provide help to people of all ages, physical abilities, and are able to communicate in 240 languages. Regardless of socio-economic status, race ethnicity, gender or age group, all are welcome to use our free services by calling our number: 1-800-222-1222. WAPC is a great investment because we are able to keep 93% of our callers at home and out of the healthcare system saving healthcare dollars.