First-responder

Naloxone leave behind programs are a popular public health intervention for combatting the opioid epidemic. These programs are designed for first responders to educate and equip high risk, nonmedical individuals to respond to opioid overdose scenarios. However, stigma and misconceptions regarding naloxone remain common among medical providers, including emergency medical services (EMS) members.

Drug overdose is a nationwide epidemic that claimed the lives of over 100,000 people in the United States in the past year.   Opioids, either alone or in combination with other drugs or alcohol, were responsible for approximately 70 percent of these deaths. Many of those 70,000 people would be alive today if they had been administered the opioid antagonist naloxone and, where needed, other emergency care. 

Summary of innovation abstracts that were presented at the National Academy of Medicine’s recent Stigma of Addiction Summit.

The PMHC Toolkit provides resources for law enforcement agencies to partner with service providers, advocates, and individuals with mental illness and/or intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD). The goal of these partnerships is to ensure the safety of all, to respond effectively, and to improve access to services and supports for people with mental illness and I/DD.

The position of the American College of Medical Toxicology (ACMT) and American Academy of Clinical Toxicology (AACT), is as follows: Fentanyl and its analogs are potent opioid receptor agonists, but the risk of clinically significant exposure to emergency responders is extremely low. To date, we have not seen reports of emergency responders developing signs or symptoms consistent with opioid toxicity from incidental contact with opioids. Incidental dermal absorption is unlikely to cause opioid toxicity

A persistently high US drug overdose death toll and increasing health care use associated with substance use disorder (SUD) create urgency for comprehensive estimates of attributable direct costs, which can assist in identifying cost-effective ways to prevent SUD and help people to receive effective treatment.

The National Association of State EMS Officials reports on state-level policy that allows paramedics and other first-responders to administer vaccines. Information from every state, the District of Columbia, Guam, and American Samoa as of the first week of February 2021 are represented in this report. Graphical analysis of conditions of the state level allowance as a function of scope of practice displays EMS personnel capability broken down by level of EMS personnel licensure in the states. Readers should note that these conditions continue to change, and that additional requirements may have to be met at the local/agency level before intramuscular vaccination administration can be performed.

The purpose of this Health Alert Network (HAN) Advisory is to alert public health departments, healthcare professionals, first responders, harm reduction organizations, laboratories, and medical examiners and coroners to— substantial increases in drug overdose deaths across the United States, primarily driven by rapid increases in overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids excluding methadone (hereafter referred to as synthetic opioids), likely illicitly manufactured fentanyl.

Canary is an overdose prevention app that monitors for a user’s inactivity after activation. In the event that a user stops moving and fails to respond to prompts by Canary, the app issues an alert to others. The app can be reset at any time by simply moving or turning it off by closing its interface. Canary emulates other hardwired safety devices that create alerts based on a person's inactivity —things such as a personal motion sensors used by firefighters, miners, and law enforcement officers.

This guide is designed for local policymakers and civic institutions to improve mental health and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic and includes recommendations and strategies for the immediate crisis and the recovery phase based on the Well Being Trust’s framework.