Key Messages

• Overdose prevention sites have struggled to adapt to physical distancing requirements resulting in reduced service hours and capacity, and a 35% decline in OPS visits since COVID-19 began.
• Misperception of low overdose risk and barriers to harm reduction likely contribute to the increase in smoking-related overdose fatalities in BC.
• There is a need to develop a remote monitoring system that maintains physical distancing and improves staff confidence in responding to clients who smoke drugs, in order to increase access to and use of OPS by people who smoke opioids, in order to reduce overdose deaths.
• Continuous pulse oximetry allows simultaneous remote monitoring of multiple individuals in health care settings to decrease sedation-related mortality.

Lay Summary

• We have obtained UBC Human Research Ethics Board and health authority approvals including COVID specific protocols.
• We have co-developed study procedures and instruments with our peer advisory group and partnering overdose prevention sites.
• We have been in discussion with partnering overdose prevention sites and health authorities in Victoria and Vancouver about project implementation.
• We are in the final planning stages of rolling out our protocol at partnering overdose prevention sites in Vancouver.
• We are in the initial planning stages of rolling out our protocol at partnering overdose prevention sites in Victoria, and assessing initial feasibility.
• Project will be piloted at partnering overdose prevention sites in Vancouver in March with Victoria partnering overdose prevention sites following in the spring.
• We have hired peer researcher assistants for Vancouver project.

Author(s)

• Nominated Principal Applicant: Dr. Jessica Moe, University of British Columbia Department of Emergency Medicine

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Population

People Who Use Drugs (PWUD) and Substance Use

Language

To ensure the rapid dissemination of this critical information, information is published in the language in which it was submitted. Please contact us for French or English translations.