SEATTLE — One of the most difficult and most critical aspects of foodborne illnesses is tracking them down. This summer, the Washington State Department of Health launched a first-of-its-kind food poisoning reporting system to the public.
It's called the Foodborne Illness Notification System, or FINS, for short.
It starts with a survey asking people everything, from what they ate, when they consumed it, and where.
"How can we do a better job with protecting public health? This is one of those improvements," said Sammy Berg, Food Safety Program Supervisor for WA DOH.
The state DOH launched a new reporting system for anyone experiencing a potential foodborne illness, and they want all the details.
"You tend to tell your friends and family, your social network, and maybe Yelp. But that doesn't necessarily get to us and actually take action. So this is an attempt again to try to get us to know about the situation so we can take steps to prevent it in the future," Berg said.
The point is to connect the dots of any foodborne illnesses statewide with the hope of seeing patterns as early as possible and then act, whether that means food recall alerts or issuing food contamination warnings.
"If we have one funnel of all this information hopefully we'll get more reporting," Berg said.
The culprits are usually norovirus, salmonella, listeria, and E. coli infection. Washington has seen its share of serious, foodborne sickness in recent years.
In 2021, Washington investigated an e-coli outbreak from Pure Eire Dairy PCC market yogurt that sent ten people to the hospital.
In 2023, listeria contamination in milkshakes from a Frugals restaurant in Pierce County killed three people and severely sickened six.
Moreover, home to Puget Sound's finest shellfish, Washington state commonly sees vibriosis illness resulting from improperly cooked shellfish.
The health department wants to enable the public to report any cases like these, as easily as possible.
"We definitely know there's a lot of underreporting of this and that's part of it, trying to remove those barriers," Berg said.
Got food poisoning? The state health department wants to know about it: HealthLink
The Washington State DOH launches a new foodborne illness reporting system to streamline response.