Suspected Drug Overdose Emergency Department Visits in Ottawa

Date Created: November 2023 Update Frequency: Weekly Last Reviewed: November 2023 Accuracy, Completeness, and Known Issues: Data are extracted by OPH from Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox & Addington (KFL&A) Public Health’s Acute Care Enhanced Surveillance Application (ACES). Emergency department visits may underestimate the full extent of drug overdoses because not everyone who experiences an overdose seeks care. ACES categorizes each ED visit to a set of syndromes based on the words or codes for symptoms or complaints recorded in the chief complaint section in a patient’s triage record. The chief complaint at triage may not be the same as the final diagnosis. OPH extracted all ED visits categorized as TOX or OPI with a clinical triage acuity score (CTAS) greater than 3 (i.e. severe). CTAS data are not available for ED visits to Queensway Carleton Hospital, so all ED visits categorized as TOX or OPI regardless of CTAS were included for this hospital. Attributes: Week Starting on Monday – first date of the week, starting on Monday and ending on Sunday, when the emergency department (ED) visit occurred. Number of suspected drug overdose ED visits to Ottawa hospitals – number of…

Publisher

City of Ottawa

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1

Catalogue metadata updated

2026-09-09