Page 53 - GCN, Oct/Nov 2017

case study DATA ANALYTICS
ODMap gives responders real-time overdose data
A new smartphone app sends geocoded information on opioid overdoses to a secure server, where it is mapped and analyzed
BY STEPHANIE KANOWITZ
The Washington/Baltimore High Intensity Drug Traffick- ing Area (W/B HIDTA) is us- ing data to tackle the opioid overdose emergency sweeping the region and the country.
It is one of 28 such organizations nationwide but the only one that also receives funding for drug treatment programs. It built the Overdose Detec-
tion Mapping Application Program (ODMap), a web-based tool that first responders and public health and safety chiefs can use to track spikes in fatal and nonfatal overdoses in real time.
“The only way we’re going to get to the heart of this overdose [crisis] is to leverage information technology and data sharing, and we need to connect public health and public safety, and
that’s the whole point of ODMap,” said Jeff Beeson, deputy director and chief of staff at W/B HIDTA, which serves Wash- ington, Maryland, Virginia and parts of West Virginia. “We’re connecting public health and public safety through data, and we’re saving lives.”
Level I users — first responders from law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services — open the tool on a
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HIDTA.ORG