Resource Library
Success Story
November 1, 2021
Cabell County, West Virginia, Success Story
This submission details the Quick Response Team (QRT) program that was implemented in December 2017 in the city of Huntington, West Virginia, to provide proactive outreach to individuals in the community who were identified through EMS data as having survived an overdose event. A first responder deflection program, utilizing crews already in the field, was then implemented in Cabell County. The results speak for themselves: following the implementation of these programs, Cabell County EMS saw a 40 percent decrease in overdose calls between 2017 and 2018. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the overall overdose call volume has decreased by 45 percent since 2017.