Page 54 - GCN, Oct/Nov 2017

DATA ANALYTICS
mobile device when they arrive at the scene of an overdose. They indicate whether the case is fatal and whether they administer naloxone, a drug that reverses the effects of an opioid over- dose. The data then populates a map on the back end.
“At that point of entry, we’re allow- ing that device to use the GPS...so it’s taking in the location, but it’s not stor- ing the location,” Beeson said. “It will just store a dot on a map of geographic location. That data then populates on the backend database, which is our ODMap.”
Only Level II users — public health officials, public-safety chiefs and law enforcement analysts — can access the password-protected database.
“Our system will automatically eval- uate a county or an area to isolate what a spike is,” Beeson said. “In a given 30 days, how many times are you report- ing an overdose? Say in 30 days you recorded six overdoses three separate times, we’ll set that spike value at six. So on any given day in the future, if six overdoses are recorded in the system within a 24-hour period, you’re going to get an email from the system auto- matically.”
Those messages go to the chiefs and analysts, who will then know that a se- rious issue is occurring and where it’s happening. That insight is leading some jurisdictions to formulate response plans, such as sending alerts to schools, hospitals, community organizations and drug treatment centers when spikes occur to make caregivers more vigilant.
SPREADING THE WORD
ODMap is now used by agencies across the country to better respond to over- doses. For example, Broome County, N.Y., sends peer recovery specialists with their officers to respond to over- doses so they can reach victims at the point of contact. “That’s really where we have a targeted approach to response,” Beeson said.
First responders from law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services open the app when they arrive at the scene of an overdose.
Additionally, ODMap produces week- ly reports on what’s happening in an area, such as what day and hour the most overdoses are being reported.
Analysts at W/B HIDTA study the data to draw more detailed conclusions. For example, Baltimore is Maryland’s drug distribution hub, so the surround- ing counties want to know when the city experiences an overdose spike. W/B HIDTA helps isolate that kind of infor- mation so everyone can be better pre- pared, Beeson said.
The organization created the Esri- based ODMap in-house, and it runs the tool on its server and stores the data in
its database. First responders do not en- ter any personally identifiable informa- tion such as victim names, so there are no concerns about violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountabil- ity Act.
To get access to ODMap, jurisdictions must sign a memorandum of under- standing stating that they can use their data any way they choose but cannot share it with others or the public, Bee- son said. They must also sign a teaming agreement, which lets them view but not share others’ data.
A PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY
W/B HIDTA initiated the program in January and concluded a pilot test in June. Currently, 15 states and 48 coun- ties report data, and ODMap has logged more than 3,400 overdoses.
Before ODMap, “there wasn’t a good system out there to track overdoses in real time across jurisdictions,” Beeson said. “Most jurisdictions are getting end-of-year medical examiner data about fatalities, and they’re not actively tracking nonfatal overdoses. We saw this as a problem.”
He sees opportunities to apply the technology in other ways, such as over- laying overdose data with information on shootings to look for correlations. For now, Beeson is busy giving demon- strations of ODMap to bring more locali- ties on board — a task he feels strongly about.
“Overdoses are the No. 1 accidental death in the country right now, and we’ve got public health officers still con- cerned about the Zika virus,” he said. “We should be talking about this.... This should dominate our public health dialogue.”
Indeed, ODMap is catching the atten- tion of agencies at the federal level. In August, the Department of Health and Human Services selected it as one of 14 project ideas for the Fall 2017 Ignite Ac- celerator, the department’s internal in- novation startup program. •
54 GCN OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2017 • GCN.COM
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