MONTICELLO – Sullivan County is teaming up with the federal government to launch a teal-time drug overdose tracking system.
The program, which went live on the Internet on Saturday, is not available to the public, but will be an important tool to track statistics about overdoses and whether they are fatal or non-fatal.
Deputy County Public Health Director Wendy Brown said Sullivan is one of just a few counties in the state to use the program.
The online ODMAP program will collect statistics from overdose calls answered by participating EMS crews,” said county Public Safety Commissioner Rick Sauer. “This includes the age and gender of the victim, the suspected drug, if Naloxone (Narcan) was administered, and whether the overdose was fatal or not,” Sauer said.
Public Health Director Nancy McGraw said the “Real-time information will allow us to more quickly identify and address issues – for example, a sudden spike in overdoses; a deadlier variant in the opioid supply; or areas where overdoses are more frequent than elsewhere.”
“We cannot afford to slow down our efforts to protect residents, our loved ones and neighbors from this addiction crisis,” said County Legislator Nadia Rajsz, chairwoman of the legislature’s Health and Family Services Committee. “Sullivan County has one of the highest rankings for drug abuse in the state, as well as one of the lowest health rankings. Therefore, we must use whatever new resource is available to address combating this disease.”
