Woodstock joins drug overdose mapping effort

First responders in Woodstock will be able to report drug overdose incident data by smart phone or computer to a nationwide mapping program under a participation agreement approved by the City Council. OVERDOSE DETECTION MAPPING PROGRAM

First responders in Woodstock will be able to report drug overdose incident data by smart phone or computer to a nationwide mapping program under a participation agreement approved by the City Council. OVERDOSE DETECTION MAPPING PROGRAM

The Woodstock City Council has agreed to have the city participate in a program that lets first responders enter fatal and non-fatal drug overdose incidents into a nationwide database.

The Overdose Detection Mapping Program is coordinated by the Washington/Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. The program resides on a host computer system in Greenbelt, Md.

“Many parts of the nation have recently witnessed a dramatic increase in heroin and other opioids, and as a result, rates of fatal and non-fatal opioid overdoses have exponentially increased to crisis levels,” the ODMAP participation agreement says. “Combating this issue requires aggressive detection and surveillance of this disease.”

A responder can enter incident data by smart phone or computer, giving the location, date and time of an incident so it can be plotted on an electronic map. The data can be filtered to identify overdose spikes in a given jurisdiction. Map access is restricted to authorized personnel.

The participation agreement runs through Dec. 31, 2021.