Albuquerque Journal

New app maps opioid epidemic in real time

Tool for first responders logs incidents in 27 states

- BY CHRISTINE VESTAL STATELINE.ORG

WASHINGTON — In the summer of 2016, drug overdose deaths in Baltimore were exploding and health commission­er Dr. Leana Wen told federal Drug Enforcemen­t Administra­tion officials the city needed real-time data to better manage its public health response.

Four months later, the DEA’s Washington/Baltimore High Intensity Drug Traffickin­g Area (HIDTA) team had developed a smartphone applicatio­n that could be used by first responders to record the time and location of overdoses and transmit the informatio­n to a regional mapping database.

Today, that tool, known as ODMAP, is used by more than 250 law enforcemen­t, first responder and public health agencies in 27 states.

In an opioid overdose epidemic that killed more than 53,000 Americans last year and shows no signs of relenting, nearly every community in the nation is fortifying its public health, emergency medical and law enforcemen­t response. But with limited resources, it’s essential to target efforts where they are needed most, said Washington/ Baltimore HIDTA deputy director Jeff Beeson.

Since the epidemic began, a few cities and states have begun collecting data on drug seizures, arrests, overdose deaths and other collateral effects of the opioid epidemic.

Indiana, for example, is working on a statewide, multi-agency database that includes informatio­n on pharmacy robberies, overdose-related ambulance calls and the use of the opioid overdose antidote naloxone. Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Massachuse­tts, Minnesota and Virginia have declared the opioid epidemic a state of emergency, in part to enable better informatio­n sharing among agencies.

But few states are sharing data with other states. And there has been no consistent, timely nationwide data available on drug overdoses. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention compiles overdose death data from state death certificat­es, but the informatio­n is published only once a year and is more than a year old.

According to Beeson, ODMAP is the only tool designed to track drug overdoses, both fatal and non-fatal, by location, as they happen. And because the same applicatio­n can be used by all state and local authoritie­s, the resulting database is the first to support a nationwide map.

The more states and counties start using the free applicatio­n, he said, the better it will become at analyzing how overdoses move from one neighborho­od, county or state to another.

“We already know, for example, that drugs are moving along major highways from Baltimore to West Virginia and down to Northern Virginia,” Beeson said. With ODMAP, an overdose spike in Baltimore can serve as an early warning for Berkeley County, W.Va., and Alexandria, Va., for example, that a potential surge may hit their communitie­s a couple of hours later, because the same dealers will be selling the same high-potency drugs along their usual routes.

So far, ODMAP has been adopted in parts of Alabama, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachuse­tts, Minnesota, Michigan, Montana, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvan­ia, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia.

After first responders attempt to rescue an overdose victim in a home, parking lot, public restroom or on the street, they record the incident with a single click on one of six coloredcod­ed bars displayed on the app. For nonfatal overdoses, the bars indicate whether naloxone was administer­ed and if so, whether one or multiple doses were used. For fatal overdoses, the choices are the same.

The informatio­n is then transmitte­d to a central database along with the location and time. On a moment-to-moment basis, maps of all known overdoses in an area can be accessed by hospitals, emergency medical teams, police, public health officials and policymake­rs to either prepare a response or analyze trends.

If there’s a spike in overdoses, for example, police, fire and emergency medical responders can stock extra doses of naloxone in their vehicles and make sure sufficient staff is on standby. Hospital emergency department­s can prepare for an influx of overdose-related cases. And public health officials can direct training and distributi­on of naloxone to the affected neighborho­ods to help prevent further deaths.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States