Service Providers    Is your facility prepared?

Service Providers

Why does preparedness matter?

Disasters place disproportionate stresses on disadvantaged populations who more readily experience resource loss and health risks during emergency situations. Currently several million Americans misuse prescription opioids and that number continues to rise as the United States faces an opioid epidemic. People who use opioids, including 400,000 opioid treatment program (OTP) patients receiving medication-assisted therapy (MAT), constitute a particularly vulnerable population, and yet disaster and planning research has only recently begun to address the considerable public health risks faced by these individuals and their communities when services are disrupted. The aim in providing these guides is to assist OTPs, harm reduction agencies, and local communities in educating people who use opioids about disaster preparedness best practices to prevent overdose, relapse, and infectious disease transmission, including HIV and hepatitis C.

service providers flowchart
1SAMHSA’s TAP 34 Disaster Planning Handbook

Recommendations for Better Preparedness



Communication

Making sure everyone on your staff and among your patient-base is aware of the communication protocols to be followed during an emergency is paramount.

Reciprocal Dosing

Reciprocal dosing arrangements (often formalized in memoranda of agreement) are essential to assuring your patients are treated in an emergency.

Emergency Procedures

Development of a continuity of operations (COOP) and other emergency plans are a great way to begin planning for treatment disruptions. However, to ensure plans are familiar to all staff, training must be provided and exercises should be completed at regular intervals.

OD Education and Naloxone

When access to maintenance medications is disrupted, people who use opioids often revert to illicit opioids, putting them at elevated risk of overdose. Providing overdose education and naloxone distribution interventions as part of your OTP’s enrollment procedures stands to save lives in emergencies and even in the day-to-day lives of your patients, who may continue to know people using opioids and not in treatment.

Resources

Naloxone Overdose Prevention Laws

This dataset focuses on state laws that provide civil or criminal immunity to licensed healthcare providers or lay responders for opioid antagonist administration.

Disaster Information Management Research Center

Get access to health information and emergency response tools for any type of disaster.

New York State's Opioid Overdose Prevention Program

Information and resources on opioid overdose prevention, including Naloxone law, regulations, and administration.

Prescribe to Prevent

Here you will find information you need to start prescribing and dispensing naloxone rescue kits, including some useful resources about this life-saving medicine.

Prevention Point Pittsburgh

Prevention Point Pittsburgh is a harm reduction organization and the only county-approved syringe exchange program in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Harm Reduction Coalition

Harm Reduction Coalition is a national advocacy and capacity-building organization that works to promote the health and dignity of individuals and communities who are impacted by drug use.

North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition

NCHRC is dedicated to the implementation of harm reduction interventions, public health strategies, drug policy transformation, and justice reform in North Carolina and throughout the American South.

NY Harm Reduction Educators

NY Harm Reduction Educators offers syringe exchange, overdose prevention resources, and supportive counseling and family stabilization, outreach/education, and HIV & HEP C testing.

Drug Policy Alliance

Join the Drug Policy Alliance in their efforts to advance those policies and attitudes that best reduce the harms of both drug use and drug prohibition, and to promote the sovereignty of individuals over their minds and bodies.

American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence (AATOD)

AATOD's mission is to enhance the quality of patient care in treatment programs by promoting the growth and development of comprehensive opioid treatment services throughout the United States.