Quality management for poison centers.

Background: Poison centers are struggling with the concept of service quality and how to improve it. The business world has dealt with this concept by establishing internationally agreed-upon criteria for quality management. Poison centers deliver health care services and can benefit from the approach taken by the corporate community.
Methods: This review article takes the criteria of quality management proposed by the ISO 9000 series guidelines and demonstrates their applicability to poison center operations by translating the business jargon of the ISO 9000 series into terminology more familiar to health care professionals and by providing examples and approaches to satisfy specific guidelines. This article offers poison center staff a framework to help them understand how to improve the quality of service they provide.