The severity of the nationwide opioid epidemic necessitates a fully-informed and evidenced-based response on the part of public health organizations. To support that aim, Pennsylvania applied for and received the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Enhanced State Opioid Overdose Surveillance (ESOOS) grant.

Objective: Review strategies and policies employed to get independent C/MEs from a state with a de-centralized C/ME system to start reporting overdose death data to the Department of Health. Summarize flexibility needed to collect overdose death data from C/MEs with a variety of case management systems/methods. Preview how overdose death data is displayed on the Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs’ Interactive Data Report.