A new pilot program to track opioid overdoses in Hartford found that emergency crews responded 98 times to drug poisonings from prescription pain killers, heroin and fentanyl.
And that was just north of Park Street, in the two-thirds of the city covered by American Medical Response ambulances — the Connecticut Poison Control Center’s first partner in its new effort to gather detailed, real-time information on opioid overdoses in the capital city.
The Poison Control Center, part of UConn Health’s Emergency Medicine Department, is hoping to improve its response to an epidemic that killed 80 people in the capital city, and 1,080 people statewide, last year. Rather than report the data each month or year, specialists will be studying it every day, looking for troublesome trends they can share with health and safety officials and community leaders.
Those partners can then act quickly to educate people about the cause of an uptick, like a spike in overdoses or the possibility that tainted drugs are circulating through a neighborhood.
This early warning system could serve as a model for the state, which is ramping up its own tracking of opioid-related issues, said Suzanne Doyon, medical director of the Poison Control Center.
“The ultimate goal here is to reduce overdoses and save lives,” she said.
Beginning in 2019, a new state law will require all hospitals and EMS crews to report opioid overdoses to the Department of Public Health. Right now, first responders and hospitals have different reporting standards, and DPH does not specifically track opioid overdoses.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner counts drug-related deaths, and DPH periodically releases the number of suspected overdoses treated in hospital emergency rooms — there were 3,090 between January and May, according to the latest data.
But Ralf Coler, director of Emergency Medical Services at DPH, said real-time information could be much more meaningful.
If there are several overdoses in one area in the same day, DPH could send out community partners to hand out Narcan nasal spray — an opioid overdose antidote — and educate people about the cause of the uptick and measures they can take, like cutting back on their dose of a drug.
“We can get boots on the ground in the area to resolve the situation,” Coler said.
While the pilot is only in its third month, Coler said DPH already plans to fund a new position at the Poison Control Center in Farmington to expand it beyond Hartford.
The money will come from a $315,000 grant the state received last year from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as part of a multistate effort to combat opioid abuse.
For now, the Poison Control Center is running the pilot with existing staff and resources.
It helps that the tracking system is relatively low-tech. American Medical Response agreed to have its ambulance crews call the Poison Control Center immediately after dealing with a suspected overdose or overuse case. Specialists at the center ask a series of questions and record data on each victim and the circumstances of their drug poisoning.
They also follow up with the hospital for those patients.
In May and June, those ambulance crews responded to a total of 98 overdose cases in Hartford, 82 percent of which were caused by heroin or fentanyl, according to early data released Wednesday. A few were caused by oxycodone, and the drugs behind the rest are unknown.
In 66 cases, EMS personnel or a bystander administered naloxone.
Of the 48 overdoses reported in June, 11 occurred within a single two-day period, June 23-24. Though one of the patients died, the spate of overdoses occurred throughout the weekend in the city, and did not appear to be related, said Peter Canning, an AMR paramedic and EMS coordinator at UConn Health’s John Dempsey Hospital.
AMR personnel responded to one other fatal overdose in June, and none in May, Canning said.
He experts those numbers to rise in July, and again in the fall when the Poison Control Center begins counting overdoses in the city’s South End, with the involvement of Aetna Ambulance Services.
Park Street appears to be the center of Hartford’s drug activity, and AMR only covers a portion of the area, Canning said.
“It’s horrible, it’s absolutely horrible the number of people,” he said. “This thing is a horrible disease and we’re just trying to do the best we can with it but I just don’t think society realizes the extent of [opioid addiction].”
Most of the victims were male, and 37 percent were males between the ages of 35 and 49, the data show. About two-thirds of the overdoses occurred in public areas, like parks, sidewalks and bathrooms.
In some cases, the program found, victims thought they had bought cocaine but instead overdosed on powdered heroin.
Emergency crews are also tracking brands of heroin that may be linked to the overdoses. In May and June, they found names like Casino, Donald Trump, Don’t Front, Howl, Joker and One Dab.
“This new program is increasing our awareness of what is happening on the ground,” Canning said. “The data gained will help us combat the crisis and rapidly intervene to save more lives.”
.galleries:after {
content: ”;
display: block;
background-color: #c52026;
margin: 16px auto 0;
height: 5px;
width: 100px;
}
.galleries:before {
content: “More Business Video”;
display: block;
font: 700 23px/25px Belizio,Georgia,’Droid Serif’,serif;
text-align: center;
color: #1e1e1e;
}
