Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Jason Luan (Photo: Government of Alberta / Flickr)

By Shaun Penner

Digital Overdose Response System

Province to pilot app aimed at curbing opioid overdoses in private homes

Mar 23, 2021 | 11:11 AM

The provincial government is hoping a new app can help curb the number of opioid overdose fatalities that occur in private homes in Alberta with the launch of a new app.

The Digital Overdose Response System (DORS) app was unveiled Tuesday morning. The app, if initiated, will trigger a call to the STARS emergency centre if an individual using opioids while alone is not responsive to a timer.

At that point, a dispatcher will attempt to contact the user. if there is no answer, an emergency response will be dispatched to the user’s home as a presumed overdose.

“We know that most people who fatally overdose in Alberta, do so in a private home,” said Jason Luan, Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions in Alberta. “Among the first of its kind in Canada, the DORS app will help prevent opioid and other substance-related deaths by those using alone at home.

The app will be piloted this summer in Calgary, before it is expected to expand to other communities by next year.

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The app looks to address one of the greatest issues amid the opioid crisis. After announcing a record amount of opioid-related overdose deaths in Alberta in 2020 with 1,128, the province says about 70 per cent of those occurred in a private home.

“Often times when emergency services respond to a drug-related call at a private home, it is too late,” said Andrea Robertson, President and CEO of STARS Air Ambulance. “The DORS app will change that by giving us the ability to get to people sooner.”

The province says the app will work in tandem with other reduction measures in Alberta, including supervised consumption and overdose prevention services, the Opioid Agonist Therapy Gap Coverage program and the Virtual Opioid Dependency program which currently.

They add that free Naloxone kits, which can temporarily reverse an opioid overdose if administered right away, are available at many locations across the province.

“Launching this app is another important step in building a full recovery-oriented continuum of care for addiction treatment in the province,” added Luan.