Emergency Medical Services-Led Outreach Following Opioid-Associated Overdose: Frequency, Modality, and Treatment...

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Emergency Medicine
• Addiction Science

Background:

• Emergency medical services (EMS) post-overdose outreach programs aim to link overdose survivors with substance use treatment and harm reduction services.
• Despite their growing implementation, there is limited evidence defining the expected outcomes of these programs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the process and patient outcomes of a large Midwestern EMS post-overdose outreach program.
• To describe outreach characteristics and the success rate of linking individuals to substance use treatment.

Main Methods:

• A retrospective cohort study analyzed clinical program records of individuals referred after a non-fatal opioid overdose.
• Data collected included outreach attempts, modalities used (in-person, text, phone, etc.), contact success, and treatment linkage.
• Descriptive statistics were used to report patient demographics, outreach frequency, and treatment linkage rates.

Main Results:

• The program attempted outreach to 3,437 individuals between 2020-2022, with a median of 2 attempts per person.
• In-person visits and text messages were the most common outreach modalities.
• Outreach resulted in 743 successful contacts, linking 304 individuals (8.8% of all attempts) to substance use treatment, with many requiring 3+ attempts.

Conclusions:

• EMS-initiated post-overdose outreach can successfully connect individuals to substance use treatment after an overdose.
• These programs can be resource-intensive, often necessitating multiple outreach attempts and diverse communication strategies to achieve treatment linkage.