SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Saratoga County officials unveiled a comprehensive, near real-time substance use surveillance dashboard today. Saratoga is the first upstate county to offer a dashboard like this which helps the county in its education, prevention, treatment, and response efforts in combatting the opioid epidemic.

Saratoga County Department of Health explains their epidemiologists leverage data from six primary sources that originate across multiple disciplines, law enforcement, health care, mental health, and public health, to provide a comprehensive picture of the burden of substance use in the county. This approach allows for the timely identification of concerning patterns, such as a spike in a limited geographic area over a defined period of time. Current data sources include,

• High Intensity Drug Trafficking Overdose Detection and Mapping Application Program (ODMAP) – (data include reporting from SCSO, NYSP, and Saratoga Springs Police Dept)
• New York State Electronic Syndromic Surveillance System (Emergency Departments)
• Emergency Medical Services (call data)
• Saratoga County Coroner’s Office (toxicology reports)
• OASAS Treatment Admission rates
• NYSDOH Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement

Supervisor Phil Barrett (Clifton Park), Chair of the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors Health and Human Services Committee said, “The opioid epidemic has devastated communities throughout the U.S. and like national and state trends, heroin and fentanyl continue to be key drivers of overdose deaths in Saratoga County. This dashboard will provide critical information for the County to implement effective strategies and initiatives to mitigate the effects of the opioid epidemic in our communities and the Health and Human Services Committee remains focused on supporting our county departments in these efforts.” Healthcare, Mental Health organizations, First Responders, Law Enforcement and the public in general can use the dashboard to track frequency of overdoses and trends to help identify treatment and resource gaps and to identify where education and training and intervention efforts are needed. To view the Surveillance Use Dashboard, click here or the Saratoga County website.