(Council Bluffs) — Pottawattamie County officials have back obligating opioid settlement funds to assist in gathering data surrounding the opioid epidemic.
During its regular meeting Tuesday morning, the county board of supervisors unanimously approved obligating over $14,000 from its opioid settlement funds to support opioid related activities by the Pottawattamie County Public Health’s Preparedness Coordinator Akeem Banister. County Planning and Development Director Matt Wyant says the opioid funds would supplement a grant the agency received from the state to assist in compiling data from the two main hospitals in Council Bluffs, CHI Health Mercy and Jennie Edmundson, related to opioid and substance abuse. Wyant says having a uniform system was identified as a need for the county’s Opioid Preparedness Plan.
“We found out through the planning process, the hospitals already are doing some data tracking internally of themselves, but they operate on different systems and those systems won’t speak with one another,” said Wyant. “So, Akeem will be able to help gather that data and transfer it into a usable format for us to be able to pass along to our first responders, law enforcement individuals, as well as work with the hospitals just on their opioid preparedness trainings as well.”
The county’s opioid dollars stem from a roughly $26 billion settlement that was reached in several lawsuits with four of the nation’s largest drug companies, with funds obligated to states and local governments across the country. Wyant says the data gathering process is crucial to addressing the opioid epidemic.
The data is not really there to show us the exact extent of the opioid problem in Pottawattamie County,” Wyant explained. “Our role in this is going to be to help pull all the data together from the different agencies that are working in this to give a clearer picture of what’s happening.”
Wyant notes the county’s contribution would serve as a smaller match to the preparedness grant received from the state.
“We’re asking for opioid funding from the county to help us support those activities in combination with this (grant),” he said. “It would be a portion of a match, but it’s not a full match as we’re getting $82,000 a year from the state.”
The board of supervisors approved the hiring of Banister to the preparedness coordinator role back in March to work with the two hospitals on preparedness plans for large-scale events in the area.
