Town’s Compassionate Approach Cuts Rates Of Overdose By More Than Half — State To Adopt It

For years, the city of Huntington, West Virginia experienced a steady increase in drug overdoses. When it reached epidemic proportions in 2014, the town launched a compassion-based outreach program that cut the rate of overdoses by more than half in less than one year.

The Quick Response Team (QRT) is a rotating group of paramedics, mental health specialists, and police officers who check up on overdose survivors within 72 hours of their overdose.

“[First responders] are having people say to them, ‘This is the first time that someone has cared enough to come and do this, you’ve saved my life, thank you’," says Karen Yost, chief executive officer of the Prestera Center, which is partnering with Huntington’s QRT and implementing a similar program in Charleston, W.Va.

“I came to Huntington because it’s one of the best stories in the United States in terms of recovery. If we can turn around overdose numbers here, we can do it anywhere,” said US Surgeon General Jerome Adams on a visit May 10. “I’m here to learn about what's working so I can share it with Washington, D.C., and the rest of the nation.”

The program has demonstrated such stunning success for the city that the state’s officials recently approved a bipartisan bill to implement the initiative in a four-year pilot program across West Virginia.