蜜柚直播

In a memo to the governor, Dr. Cara Christ wants daily reports of suspected cases of deaths from both prescription and nonlegal forms of opiates. Christ told Ducey it will 鈥渁llow for real-time tracking of the severity of the epidemic.鈥�

But Christ also wants Ducey to order doctors to give her agency something on a daily basis it does not get now at all: reports of cases where someone has overdosed on the drug.

More to the point, Christ wants all health-care providers to report 鈥減atient-specific information鈥� about suspected opioid overdoses, including name, gender and date of birth if known.

鈥淭his information will allow 蜜柚直播 Department of Health Services to implement patient tracking, if necessary,鈥� she said in her memo to the governor.

Ducey is expected to sign the new executive order as early as Tuesday, June 13.

The request comes as health officials struggle to get a handle on not only the rapidly increasing use of the drug, both legally and otherwise, but a spike in deaths. Health officials report 790 people died of opioid overdoses last year, an average of more than two a day.

Agency spokeswoman Holly Ward said her boss believes that having more real-time data might help the health department figure out how to reverse the trend. But that still leaves the question of how having that information will make a difference.

鈥淭hat remains to be seen, that remains to be answered,鈥� she said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a fair question.鈥�

But Ward said it鈥檚 a good starting point, particularly with data lagging as much as a year behind.

鈥淲hat we will be asking for will give us a much better picture that we just don鈥檛 have right now,鈥� she said. And that, Ward said, should lead to some solutions that have so far eluded health professionals.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 think this is a situation where we already have the answer,鈥� she said.

鈥淲e can try to make a lot of guesses,鈥� Ward explained. But she said that, without more data, 鈥渢hey won鈥檛 be very informed guesses.鈥�

That all deals with trends. But Ward said the nature of the problem 鈥� and the number of deaths 鈥� also requires individual patient tracking.

鈥淭here is a solid correlation of how many times an opioid user has been admitted or taken to the hospital for an overdose before they die,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 something like three times.鈥�

What patient tracking would do, Ward said, is enable someone to get to that patient sooner 鈥� before they die.

鈥淭hat would help us to potentially have intervention sooner,鈥� she said. 鈥淚n a public health emergency response, our goal is to save lives.鈥�

Ward said it might not be anyone from her agency that intercedes.

鈥淏ut it could be one of the many partners that would have that ability based on that data,鈥� she said.鈥�

She said none of this would lead to public release of anyone鈥檚 name, citing federal laws protecting individual health records.