This section of the toolkit was developed using information gathered through interviews and focus groups with treatment provider stakeholders, who represent individuals working in the realm of in- and out-patient substance use disorder treatment facilities.
Below you will find the promising overdose response strategies identified by treatment providers in Kent County. Each promising strategy is numbered, along with stakeholder identified barriers to accomplishing the proposed strategy, and how the System for Opioid Overdose Surveillance (SOS) may assist stakeholders’ ability to accomplish each promising strategy.
Promising Strategy 1: Promoting Community Awareness
Treatment provider stakeholders emphasize the importance of understanding how opioid use and overdose is occurring in their community in order to adequately respond with limited resources. Informing the provider response with use of near real-time data helps in determining the level of staffing or resources, such as bed space, needed for providers to offer the most effective care to the community. One provider expresses that, “Being a brick and mortar facility there’s only so much you can do, but it does push us to ensure that we have the right response available. I think the one notification that we had, it has us look at potentially telling people that this isn’t the week to take off just in case that we have that spike, but other than that, it’s just about staffing and bed space.” Treatment providers across Genesee county repeatedly voice concerns over limited resources and staffing, emphasizing the need to access data to inform their care.
Treatment providers in Kent County work closely with those using opioids, experiencing mental illness, and those who have experienced an overdose. Treatment providers view community awareness and education as a powerful tool for not only preventing further opioid overdose in the community, but also for positively impacting the way those with substance use disorders are supported. Encouraging community awareness among the public is also one of few tools that can be used to break down the stigma that surrounds opioid use and overdose.
“If we as healthcare providers know where overdoses are predominantly happening, we can target various educational and prevention activities in those areas.”
Treatment Provider Stakeholder
Barriers to Promoting Community Awareness
Public misunderstanding of opioid overdose: The complexities that may accompany opioid overdose and treatment, such as mental illness, complex social dynamics, access to services, and law enforcement involvement, can make it a difficult topic for the public to understand. These complexities were identified by treatment providers as a barrier to achieving effective and far-reaching community awareness. This community awareness not only includes the public that may not be directly affected by opioid overdose but also those who are using opioids. With a lack of community understanding of the issues and the support that exists, individuals often do not know how and where to reach out for help.
Near Real-Time Data Impact on Promoting Community Awareness
Use data in community awareness campaigns: Providers see the data from SOS being used to communicate the extent of opioid overdose to organizational leadership. Providers also plan to use the data as a tool to reach across communities, demonstrating the extent of overdose and taking the first steps in reducing community stigma. Providers also strongly favor the presentation of summary statistics from the near real-time SOS data in patient communication. Providers have already begun introducing patients to the data and reported that it is helpful in communicating the extent of overdose in the community to patients (i.e., they are not alone in this struggle) and in bringing awareness to patients regarding specific areas that may be considered ‘hot spots’ for overdose.
“When you have very clear data, you’re able to kind of reach across all people to come up with a common understanding, and to show regardless of what you believe, this [overdose data] is very, very clear, and I think from that standpoint anytime we’re putting data out there to depict a problem…but also to further striate where the most important issues are, is really, really important, because it helps us target our intervention.”
Treatment Provider Stakeholder
Promising Strategy 2: Data-driven Resource Allocation
Treatment providers in Kent County emphasize the positive impact access to overdose incident data can have on their efforts to acquire adequate resources necessary to accomplish their goals in overdose prevention. ‘Adequate resources’ look different for each stakeholder. For some stakeholders, this means obtaining funding to maintain current projects and to develop new ones. For others, it may mean training and retaining sufficient staff members to meet the high demand of patients or continually presenting data to governmental or organizational leadership to justify the need for overdose prevention work in the community. For treatment providers in Kent County, accurate and timely data is a necessary aspect of acquiring greater funding, community support, and allocating available resources effectively.
“I think it’s useful when we talk about partnering with various organizations in town and just knowing which areas are most impacted so we can target partnerships in those specific areas.”
Treatment Provider Stakeholder
Barriers to Data-driven Resource Allocation
- Lack of funding places pressure on community organizations: One of the greatest barriers facing treatment providers is the lack of available funding to maintain or expand overdose prevention programs. Stakeholders express the difficulty they face in prioritizing overdose prevention among funders.
- High demand of services stretches limited resources thin: Another barrier faced by treatment providers is the high demand for services (e.g., substance use disorder treatment, detox, naloxone distribution) and the lack of staff, as well as space, to treat them.
Near Real-Time Data Impact on Data-driven Resource Allocation
- Operate more efficiently using data in overdose response and prevention: Access to near real-time data allows treatment providers to advocate for their organizational needs, the needs of the community who uses opioids, and to allocate resources in the most efficient way possible. This data provides evidence for both organizational and community needs, as well as informs treatment providers of overdose activity in near real-time, allowing them to see where and when they should allocate their limited resources.
- Present near real-time data as evidence for the need of local support and funding: Treatment providers envision using the near real-time data provided by SOS to present data-informed funding proposals, either when seeking out grant opportunities or when advocating for funding priority to local governmental officials.
- Identify and target areas of high overdose burden for focused community overdose response and prevention efforts: Treatment providers also use near real-time data to identify locations in Kent County with a higher incidence of overdose. These locations can then be specifically selected for events such as drug takeback days or increased resource allocation, such as naloxone distribution. With a limited budget and staff, but a persistent need for harm reduction services in the community, near real-time data can be used to target the locations with the greatest need, so treatment organizations are allocating their finite resources as efficiently as possible.