This bathroom can detect overdoses and save lives

At Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, a clinic that caters to Boston’s unhoused population in the heart of the city’s infamous “methadone mile,” bathroom overdoses are a near-daily occurrence. They happen so frequently, in fact, that the clinic has outfitted its restrooms with motion-sensor systems designed specifically for this purpose: to detect when people in bathrooms stop moving, allowing clinic staff to intervene before it’s too late. 

Thanks to the “safe bathroom” technology, as the system is known, these scenes have been ending in relief, not tragedy. By notifying health workers of overdoses as they happen, alarms give them a chance to administer naloxone, the medication that reverses opioid overdoses, and employ rescue breathing techniques. In the roughly seven years since the clinic first installed these sensors, it has seen hundreds of bathroom overdoses — but not a single death.

“It gives you an early warning so the providers on site can bring everyone back,” said John King, the local electrician who the clinic tasked with creating a specialized motion-sensor system aimed at detecting overdoses. “It’s like going back in time — like I invented a time machine.”

More from STAT:

Become a subscriber: https://www.statnews.com/stat-plus/
Watch Full Episodes:    / @statnews  
Newsletters: https://www.statnews.com/signup/
STAT events: https://www.statnews.com/stat-events/
Facebook:   / statnews  
Twitter:   / statnews  
Instagram:   / statnews  
Flipboard: rb.gy/3xnsxr
STAT Reports: https://rb.gy/rexfwj
STAT eBooks: https://rb.gy/eme3h5

ABOUT STAT:
Founded in 2015, STAT is a global digital media brand that focuses on delivering fast, deep, and tough-minded journalism about the life sciences industries to over six million monthly site visitors and an additional 20 million readers on the Apple News app. STAT takes you inside academic labs, biotech boardrooms, and political backrooms, casting a critical eye on scientific discoveries, scrutinizing corporate strategies, and chronicling the roiling battles for talent, money, and market share. With an award-winning newsroom, STAT provides indispensable insights and exclusive stories on the technologies, personalities, power brokers, and political forces driving massive changes in the life sciences industry — and a revolution in human health.