Equipping an urban hospital police and security team with Narcan: part two

In their article in the last issue of the Journal, the authors reported on their health system's decision to equip their security officers with Narcan, the nasal-spray form of naloxone, and train them to use the drug to revive patients and non-patients overdosed with heroin or other life-threatening opioids. The decision, they said, was prompted with an increase in individ- uals who may come to the hospital ' 32 buildings and over 130 offsitefa- cilities to "shoot up" themselves. In this follow-up report, they describe what has happened in the seven months since the policy was begun-- how many times Narcan was utilized; what happened during such incidents; lessons learned; and how comfortable security officers are with this new re- sponsibility.