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Utah's Poison Control Center risks costing taxpayers more than necessary if it does not make key adjustments, according to a legislative audit released Tuesday.
The center should reconsider staffing protocol and better define its relationship with its host university, the audit says.
The agency's job is to dole round-the-clock phone advice, give clinical consultations and direct prevention efforts. It also tracks how many people are poisoned and how, examining longer-term trends.
But it appeared to do less work at a higher cost to the state from 2010 to 2014, auditors told the Legislative Audit Subcommittee at the Capitol on Tuesday afternoon.
In that span, center expenses climbed about 18 percent — from roughly $2.1 million to $2.5 million.
The number of calls in the same time frame dropped by 17 percent — from about 63,000 to 52,000 — aligning with the national trend, the audit reports.
"Thats the concern for me in this audit, is this huge increase in cost," Sen. President Wayne Niederhauser told the legislative panel, "yet their utilization is down."
Poison Control Center managers counter that no one is slacking.
In the past decade, more people have started consulting Google instead of calling the poison control center, said Executive Director Barbara Crouch.
"They don't always get the right answer" online, Crouch said, but queries are down nonetheless.
Incoming calls also have become more complicated in recent years, and employee wages have increased. Meanwhile, the center has upped outreach efforts at daycare centers and schools, Crouch said.
Auditors also write that the center should sign a formal lease for its space in the school's pharmacy building and a contract for such U. services such as payroll.
Center administrators paid $2.5 million from 2008-2010 to stay at the U.'s Skaggs Pharmacy Institute for an undefined "longterm" period, center records show. But there's no formal contract or end date for the center that has claimed space in one U. building or another since 1954.
Without the formal document, it's unclear whether the center could recover a sizable chunk of the $2.5 million if it were to cut ties with the U.
Audit manager Darin Underwood's report also points a finger at the Legislature for failing to give poison control managers any marching orders in statute. Utah legislators took control of the center's purse strings from the Department of Health last year.
The Tuesday audit also highlights some cost-cutting measures Poison Control could take.
Trained student workers, including pharmacy interns, auditors write, should field "low-risk" hotline calls. At present, higher-paid pharmacists and nurses are the first to pick up the phones. Pharmacists' expertise also makes them more efficient than their nurse counterparts, the audit notes.
In a written response to the audit, Crouch says the center is already reviewing ways to become more efficient, such as hiring a full-time medical director to keep the center up-to-speed on accreditation standards.
Crouch, an in-house researcher, stresses the importance of the center's studies designed to spot health hazards and community education programs.
The audit next will go to the legislative panel overseeing higher education spending.
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