Opioid overdoses have emerged within the last five to ten years to be a major public health concern. The high potential for fatal events, disease transmission, and addiction all contribute to negative outcomes. However, what is currently known about opioid use and overdose is generally gathered from emergency room data, public surveys, and mortality data. In addition, opioid overdoses are a non-reportable condition.

In recent years, the number of deaths from illicit and prescription opioids has increased significantly resulting in a national and local public health crisis. According to the Texas Center for Health Statistics, there were 1340 opioid related deaths in 2015.1 In 2005, by comparison, there were 913 opioid related deaths. Syndromic surveillance can be used to monitor overdose trends in near real-time and provide much needed information to public health officials.

Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death in the United States, with an estimated 60,000 deaths in 2016. Nationally, EMS overdose responses with naloxone administration have nearly doubled from 2012 to 2016 from 573.6 to 1004.4 per 100,000 EMS events. Resuscitation using the opioid antagonist, naloxone is recommended in cases of suspected opioid ODs, and has been increasingly used by EMS agencies, law enforcement, healthcare providers, and Good Samaritans.

As a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Enhanced State Opioid Overdose Surveillance (ESOOS) funded state, Kentucky started utilizing Emergency Medical Services (EMS) data to increase timeliness of state data on drug overdose events in late 2016. Using developed definitions of heroin overdose for EMS emergency runs, Kentucky analyzed the patterns of refused/transported EMS runs for both statewide and local jurisdictions.