Erie County NY Opioid Overdose Outreach Enhancement Program

The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) Program is the first major federal substance use disorder treatment and recovery legislation in 40 years and the most comprehensive effort to address the opioid epidemic. CARA establishes a comprehensive, coordinated, and balanced strategy through enhanced grant programs that expand prevention and education efforts while also promoting treatment and recovery. The Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Site-based program was developed as part of the CARA legislation signed into law on July 22, 2016. In FY 2017, the Overdose Outreach Projects will provide funding and technical assistance to units of local government, and Indian tribal governments to plan, develop, and implement comprehensive diversion and alternatives to incarceration programs that expand outreach, treatment, and recovery efforts to individuals impacted by the opioid epidemic who come into contact with the justice system. Funding may be used to connect survivors of a non-fatal overdose with treatment providers or a peer recovery coach in an emergency department; provide survivors of non-fatal overdoses, and their friends and family, with access to naloxone and other recovery support services; provide prioritized—ideally immediate—access to detox and treatment services; overdose prevention education and community outreach and engage a research partner to conduct action research providing skills and assistance in identifying performance measures, tracking measures to assist in the improvement of program implementation and fidelity, providing subject matter expertise and guidance.

In response to the 303% increase in synthetic opioid-related deaths from 2014 to 2015, the Erie County Department of Health will increase community access to naloxone and link overdose survivors to treatment. The project aims to more effectively link individuals across the sequential intercept model to care. In cases where individuals cannot be connected directly to care, they can be linked to local organizations for support. Funds will also be used to create an ongoing systematic geospatial analysis of law enforcement and EMS calls for service and the product that caused the overdose. In order to take advantage of other information systems, the program will leverage data from I-STOP, the state’s prescription drug monitoring program. The program will be led by a multidisciplinary team with representatives from consumer peer groups, EMS, and Behavioral Health, Researchers from the University of Buffalo will serve as the research partner for the proposed project.

CA/NCF