ADHS continues to work with partners to respond to the opioid emergency in Arizona, concluding our third week in the Health Emergency Operations Center (HEOC). The teamwork across many areas has resulted in another week of significant accomplishments.

This week, we wrapped up our first week of data collection under the Governor’s executive order for enhanced surveillance. This required our teams to onboard new required reporters like physicians and law enforcement officers onto our surveillance systems so they can begin reporting things like opioid overdoses and doses of naloxone administered.

Our epidemiology teams are analyzing all the data reported to date and we’re looking forward to releasing our first report on Monday. We’ve also developed new FAQs (general, first responders) and training materials to support our partners in submitting their data reports to us and held meetings with our first responder partners to answer questions and provide support for reporting.

On Wednesday, we hosted our Arizona Prescription Initiative Health Care Advisory Team to discuss making updates to the existing Arizona Opioid Prescribing Guidelines. We had great input from our healthcare partners and are currently at work incorporating suggestions and feedback in order to update these critical guidelines.

This week, we also kicked off our first naloxone administration training for law enforcement and other community groups. On Monday, we trained 82 individuals in Flagstaff, and today, we’ll train nearly 300 more in Tucson. Additional training sessions are scheduled for Phoenix on June 29 and will be scheduled for Yuma later this summer. In total, we’ll train nearly 1,000 people through these four training events!

You can stay up to date on the latest opioid emergency response activities by visiting our website at www.azhealth.gov/opioid. Check back Monday to see our latest data. If you’d like to get involved, we’d love to hear from you.