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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has awarded the Indiana State Department of Health a three-year, $21 million grant to help prevent and detect drug overdoses.
The department announced on Tuesday afternoon that it will receive $7.1 million per year. It said the first installment arrived Sunday.
The grant will be used to collect more and better data on drug overdoses throughout the state and support new and ongoing programs and partnerships designed to prevent drug overdoses.
Specifically, the department plans to use the funding to collect more timely data on overdoses treated at emergency rooms and enhance the state’s prescription drug monitoring program to improve real-time access to patient prescription histories and provide health records to small physician practices.
More than 18,000 prescribers already are connected to the state’s prescription drug monitoring program as a way to monitor patients’ opioid prescriptions and prevent overdoses.
The grant also will be used to offer harm-reduction training to law enforcement officers, create online courses on opioid prescribing for dentists and create post-overdose treatment protocols for emergency departments.
The health department also will be partnering with the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration to support transportation costs for ride-booking services to treatment centers and partnering with the Indiana Department of Corrections to train inmates to educate their peers in hopes of reducing rates of hepatitis C.
“Gov. Eric Holcomb’s Next Level Recovery initiative is saving lives and helping people recover from substance-use disorder,” Jim McClelland, Indiana’s executive director for drug prevention, treatment and enforcement, said in a prepared statement. “This grant supports our vital prevention and treatment efforts as we continue to combat the drug crisis in our state and connect more people to care.”
Data from the CDC shows the state saw a 12% decrease in drug overdose deaths from 2017 to 2018. But that came after a record-setting 2017, when more than 1,800 people died from overdoses.
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