Overdose Fatality Review

Snohomish County’s Overdose Fatality Review Team

Driven by the belief that overdose deaths are preventable

Purpose

The purpose of Snohomish County’s Overdose Fatality Review (OFR) is to effectively identify system gaps and develop community-specific overdose prevention and intervention strategies. We seek to better understand overdose deaths so we can use that information to prevent them.

Process

Snohomish County’s OFR develops prevention and intervention strategies by bringing together a prevention-oriented, multidisciplinary team to review aggregate and case-level data to develop a timeline leading up to a fatal overdose.

This review, occurring quarterly, helps us gain a deeper understanding of missed opportunities for prevention and intervention. It also creates a space to help build organizational and interpersonal relationships among professionals working in the substance use and overdose prevention space. Findings from the OFR will be used to make recommendations, inspire action, and prevent future deaths.

For similar review processes in Snohomish County, visit Snohomish County’s Child Fatality Review and Prevention.

Protected by Law

Overdose Fatality Review teams operate in various counties across the country. In Washington State, code RCW 70.05.210 permits local health jurisdictions to do this work. These rules also allow partner agencies to share and discuss data for this purpose. The law mandates strict privacy and confidentiality measures to protect information about those who died and their loved ones. Information about individual fatalities is not shared publicly as part of the fatality review work.

Operating Framework

Snohomish County’s OFR team structure is based off the nationally recognized model managed by the Institute for Intergovernmental Research. Like the CDC Foundation’s Public Health and Safety Team (PHAST) framework, an OFR encourages multisector collaboration by the data-driven “SOS” Process:

S – Shared Understanding: OFRs increase members' understanding of area agencies’ roles and services as well as the community’s assets and needs, substance use and overdose trends, current prevention activities, and system gaps.

O – Optimized Capacity: OFRs increase the community’s overall capacity to prevent future overdose deaths by leveraging resources from multiple agencies and sectors to increase system-level response.

S- Shared Accountability: OFRs continually monitor local substance use and overdose death data as well as recommendation implementation activities. Status Updates on recommendations are shared at each OFR team meeting, reinforcing accountability for action.

For more information on the national framework, please visit the Institute for Intergovernmental Research’s Overdose Fatality Review website.

Meeting Summaries

Snohomish County’s Overdose fatality review meeting summaries and recommendations can be found below:

First meeting summary coming soon

Contact Us

If you have questions, or are interested in joining the OFR team, please contact the Overdose Fatality Review Coordinator.

Emails to MAC@snoco.org regarding Overdose Fatality Review also will be passed along to the coordinator.

FIND TREATMENT OR SUPPORT