Cynthia Aaron, M.D., professor of Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics for the Wayne State University School of Medicine, has been named medical director of the Michigan Regional Poison Control Center at Children's Hospital of Michigan.
Dr. Aaron took over the position Feb. 1 when Suzanne White, M.D., chair of Emergency Medicine, was named executive vice president, chief medical officer for the Detroit Medical Center system.
"The Poison Control Center already has an excellent reputation and I hope to maintain this," said Dr. Aaron, F.A.C.M.T., F.A.C.E.P. "We are one of the largest poison centers in the country and have been a trendsetter for new data collection processes and identification of new trends in poisonings."
The center provides 24-hour emergency and information hotline services, follow-up calls regarding continuing care in poison exposure cases, education, nationwide data collection providing epidemiologic surveillance, and access to emergency information as an integral part of local, state and national emergency preparedness and response for natural and manmade disasters. Recent data show that the center now overseen by Dr. Aaron handles more total calls and more follow-up calls than nine of 12 poison centers. Since the closing of the sister center in Grand Rapids in 2010, the center at Children's Hospital of Michigan is the only such facility in Michigan and covers the entire state.
The center provides assessment, triage, management and continued monitoring of more than 100,000 poison exposures in Michigan each year at no direct cost to the patient, the practitioner or health care institution. The center, the second or third largest in the country, is one of 50 across the nation (including Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Micronesia, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands) in the American Association of Poison Control Centers.
"The center has a huge educational mission to the health care community of Michigan. In particular, we educate over 120 physicians, pharmacists and medical students in the southeast Michigan region every year, in addition to providing a scheduled lecture program to over 200 training emergency physicians a year," Dr. Aaron said. The center will soon launch an Advanced Hazmat Life Support program for state organizations that request the program.
Dr. Aaron, who will continue to serve as one of the center's consulting toxicologists, said she would like to increase the center's local and national standing not only as a call center but in its ability to serve as a referral center for drug- or poison-intoxicated patients, boost research output and enhance the educational mission.
"It is important in this financially difficult time to show that poison centers are one of the few federally supported health care initiatives that are important to fiscal responsibility as we save $7 to $9 in health care dollars for every dollar spent on our support," she said.
She also would like to extend the center's public health mission by enhancing the relationship with the Michigan Department of Community Health.