Morris County Creates Overdose Death Review Team

MORRIS COUNTY, NJ — Morris County announced Tuesday the launch of an Overdose Fatality Review Team. Following a statewide initiative, the group sets to identify regional trends and evaluate strategies to address opioid-overdose deaths.

The Center for Disease Control and New Jersey Department of Health are funding the initiative, bases off a program developed in Maryland. The teams consist of local, multi-agency, multi-disciplinary groups of professionals who conduct comprehensive but confidential reviews of overdose deaths.

The review team then helps local health officials with policies, practices and partnerships that may prevent future overdoses. Morris County's team comes through a partnership between Prevention is Key — a Morris County-based organization that addresses substance-abuse issues — and the Morris County Division of Public Health.

Samantha Neville, of Prevention is Key, will serve as the coordinator for Morris County's Overdose Fatality Review Team.

"The idea of gathering a group of individuals from diverse professions to share their perspectives and experiences," Nevill said, "and to learn from one another in order to make a recommendation on how to prevent future overdose deaths feels like a massive step in the right direction, and I’m happy to be part of that process."

The state health department offered $100,000 grants to cities and counties throughout the state last year to develop such teams. The Maryland project improved the quality of referral systems, enhanced outreach to families to provide overdose prevention and treatment services, and identified new audiences for Naloxone trainings.

Officials reported 154,566 opioid prescriptions dispensed in Morris County in 2020. Annual totals from 2013-19 ranged from 190,000 to 267,000, according to the New Jersey Office of Attorney General. But overdose deaths remains consistent with the totals in the past few years, with 87 suspected in Morris County.

Here are the county's annual totals of suspected overdose deaths, according to the OAG:

• 2013: 46
• 2014: 51
• 2015: 44
• 2016: 71
• 2017: 89
• 2018: 94
• 2019: 86
• 2020: 87

The NJDOH summarized the responsibilities of all Overdose Fatality Review Teams in the state:

• Conduct multi-agency/multi-disciplinary reviews of all available information on an individual who dies from an overdose; promote cooperation and coordination across agencies involved in overdose investigations;
• Establish policies and procedures for pooling all available information on overdose deaths from local, county, and state government agencies, law enforcement, private entities that maintain privacy and confidentiality and comply with all applicable State and Federal privacy and confidentiality legal requirements;
• Identify points of contact between deceased individuals and healthcare, social services, criminal justice and other systems involved;
• Identify the risk factors that put individuals at risk for drug overdose within their jurisdiction; and
• Recommend how to improve local partnerships, policies and practices to prevent overdose deaths.

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