By Leila Merrill
EMS1
WASHINGTON — The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, in partnership with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, launched a first-of-its-kind nationwide data dashboard of nonfatal opioid overdoses this week.
Nonfatal overdoses can be used to help predict fatal overdoses and for first responders and service providers to offer life-saving medications such as naloxone and treatment for substance abuse disorder.
“Before today, the best available data at our disposal was the number of Americans dying from an overdose, which was too late to help save a life,” Dr. Rahul Gupta, director of the ONDCP, in a news release. “With this new dashboard, we can now provide first responders, clinicians, and policymakers with real-time, actionable information that will improve our response and save lives. President Biden’s Strategy makes clear that we must be guided by science to beat the overdose epidemic and this new data tracking system will help us do that.”
Ann Carlson, NHTSA’s acting administrator, sees an opportunity to direct resources to battle the opioid problem.
“This dashboard puts data to work, strengthening our ability to save lives and fight back against the opioid crisis,” Carlson said. “State EMS officials and clinicians provide nearly 49 million records a year to the National EMS Information System. This is a treasure trove of data that can help us identify areas most at risk of overdoses and direct resources and support accordingly to respond before it’s too late.”
Click here to see the nonfatal opioid overdose data in your area.