Agency: Suspected ODs top 3,000

New data helps show emerging patterns in emergency rooms

There were 3,090 visits to hospital emergency rooms in the state for suspected drug overdoses between January and April. That broke down to an average of 180 visits a week.

The state Department of Public Health data were collected through the department’s new surveillance system, EpiCenter, which provides near real-time estimates of ER use for possible drug overdoses.

The idea is to “better under- stand the types of opioids, including fentanyl and associated substances, in combination with other emerging drugs, causing or contributing to unintentional overdoses and deaths,” said state public health commissioner Raul Pino in a news release.

At least one emergency physician said the numbers should be helpful in determining overdose trends and how to respond.

“It’s nice planning purposes to have surveillance numbers and data,” said Dr. Michael Werdmann, emergency physician at Bridgeport Hospital.

Drug deaths and overdoses have been a growing problem in the state. Last year, there were 1,038 accidental drug intoxication deaths in Connecticut — the first time the number of such deaths has topped a thousand in at least five years.

In March, the state released the total of of ER visits for suspected overdoses for the first two months of the year.

At that time, the total was 1,317 visits for suspected overdoses.

However, when compiling the latest statistics, the state’s surveillance system made changes to the definition of “suspected drug overdose.”

Under the new standards, there were total of 1,495 visits for suspected overdoses in January and February.

The latest batch of data showed Hartford County had the most ER visits for suspected overdoses, a 1,021, followed by New Haven County at 907 and Fairfield County at 416.

The rest of the counties all had fewer than 200 ER visits for possible overdoses, and Windham County had the least, at 113.

Werdmann said although the total number of suspected overdoses in Fairfield County is high, its overdose rate relative to its population is relatively low.

In January, there were 117 visits to ERs in Fairfield County for suspected overdoses — but its rate of visits per 100,000 population was 15.45. Compare that to Litchfield County, which had only 42 ER visits for overdoses that month, but had a rate of 25.82 visits per 100,000 population.

Fairfield County’s rates relative to population were fairly low throughout the period studied. “That’s good to see,” Werdmann said.