About the Project

Project Goals

The goal of this community-centered project is to develop and implement a generalizable and sustainable digital system to improve overdose reporting and data-driven prevention across Texas.

Why It’s Needed

  • Texas needs better data to improve access to substance use treatment, overdose prevention, and harm reduction services.
  • Texas lags behind other states in innovative reporting systems.
  • We’re unique! Texas is an incredibly diverse state, with vast rural and urban communities, an international border, and varying overdose reporting requirements across different communities and organizations.

Project CONNECT Timeline

Year 1

2019 – 2020

  • Convened Community Advisory Boards
  • Created Overdose Report (Beta version)
Year 2

2020 – 2021

  • Designed, developed, tested, and piloted the Harm Reduction version of TxCOPE in Bexar, El Paso, Travis, and Williamson counties.
Year 3

2021 – 2022

  • Launch the data ingest pilot.
  • Disseminate Harm Reduction version of TxCOPE platform to Houston and Dallas areas.
  • Develop and disseminate Community version of the TxCOPE platform to original pilot counties and Houston and Dallas areas.
  • Develop and test Machine Learning and Predictive Modeling.
Year 4

2022 – 2023

  • Disseminate Harm Reduction and Community versions of TxCOPE platform statewide.
  • Create and test First Responder solution for TxCOPE.
  • Launch Predictive Analytics Model.
Year 5

2023 – 2024

  • Implement First Responder TxCOPE solution statewide.
  • Iterate upon all versions of TxCOPE for continual improvement.
  • Facilitate adoption of all versions statewide.

The goal of the TxCOPE platform is to provide a unified, simple system to gather accurate information and improve services and knowledge surrounding overdose and naloxone data in Texas.

Leadership

Project CONNECT is led by Kasey Claborn, PhD, research scientist and licensed clinical psychologist. She is an assistant professor in the Steve Hicks School of Social Work and the Department of Psychiatry at Dell Medical School, and an adjunct assistant professor of medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Learn more about Dr. Claborn and the rest of the team.

Project CONNECT Thanks our Funding Partners

This project is supported by Texas Targeted Opioid Response, a public health initiative operated by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission through federal funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration grant award number 1H79TI083288.

Google Cloud

The syringe service exchange feature and the ability to track certain harm reduction items is supported by a donation from the San Antonio Nexus Connection (SANC).