‘You mean you're not doing it already?’ A national sentinel toxico-surveillance system for detecting illicit, emerging and novel psychoactive drugs in presentations to emergency departments

Abstract

Patients presenting to the ED after using illicit drugs, including novel psychoactive substances, are a unique source of information on substances that are directly causing acute harm in the community. Conventionally, illicit drug intoxications are assessed and managed in EDs based on self-report and presenting symptoms, with no objective data on the causative agent. The Emerging Drugs Network of Australia (EDNA) is a national toxico-surveillance system that provides analytic data on these drugs, from sentinel Emergency Departments. It is a collaborative national network of emergency physicians, toxicologists, forensic laboratories and public health authorities. The key benefit of EDNA is the capacity to provide timely laboratory-confirmed toxicology data on emerging drug-related threats in the community. This leads to improvements in clinical, forensic laboratory and public health harm reduction responses, reflecting rapid translation of the research.