The Overdose Prevention System: The Challenge of Connecting People, Organizations, and the Law: a Washington Posterior at the White House

Critics including Rep. David Trone (D-Md.) say the lack of accurate, real-time data has made it harder for health officials to respond as black market pain pills, heroin and illicit fentanyl flooded communities.

The site will be updated every two weeks with reports from the county level in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

“We could see tens of thousands of additional lives saved,” said Dr. Rahul Gupta, head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, during a call with reporters on Wednesday.

The website will provide actionable information that will improve our responses, according to Gupta.

The overdose crisis has hit a deadly new record last year according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The website won’t include information about hospitals, schools, businesses and non-profits that collect overdose information.

For instance, “if you see a potential trend, then you’re going to have to decide if it’s real, and then you have to decide what sort of intervention you do,” he said. “Then you have to decide how you’re going to assess the effectiveness of the intervention. There is a dataset that spans across multiple locations that is very useful.

The opioid epidemic: A national trend report from the Biden administration’s Office of National Drug Control Policy and future trends on nonfatal opioid overdose deaths

In 2020, a report from the CDC found that opioids have “substantial involvement” in nonfatal overdoses, including those involving other types of drugs, and these types of nonfatal overdoses are on the rise.

Obtaining and monitoring more real-time data on opiate overdoses that don’t end in death could help predict where overdoses are more likely to happen and where there will be more need for first responders.

It shows that as of this week, compared with the national rate of nonfatal overdoses, some of the top cities and counties with rates that are much higher than average, per 100,000 people in their population, are Portsmouth, Virginia; Powell, Kentucky; Philadelphia; Caroll, Kentucky; and Walker, Alabama.

Until now, federal health officials generally have monitored only opioid overdose deaths, according to the Biden administration’s Office of National Drug Control Policy.

“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,” she said.

This will not tell you about the true nature of the numbers. According to the new system, it will not give you clinical findings, but national trends can help officials plan their response efforts to the opiate epidemic.