Free App for Naloxone Response and Overdose Reporting
A Statewide Model for Three-Language Overdose Response and Save Reporting
ReviveAR is a free mobile app, built by the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership with opioid settlement funds, that walks any Arkansan through naloxone administration in English, Spanish, and Marshallese, connects them to naloxone, family support, and treatment and recovery resources, and lets them report a save back to the state.
The Challenge They Were Addressing
Arkansas had already made important investments in overdose prevention tools and naloxone education, helping equip first responders, organizations, and community members with resources to save lives. As those efforts evolved, ARORP recognized an opportunity to build on that foundation by creating a long-term, sustainable platform supported through opioid settlement funding and designed to meet the needs of a broader range of users.
The team identified several areas where additional support could strengthen overdose response efforts statewide. There was an opportunity to make overdose response information more accessible during a crisis, expand language options to better serve Arkansas's diverse communities, and create stronger connections to prevention, treatment, recovery, and family support resources. There was also a growing need for a mechanism that would allow overdose reversals to be voluntarily reported, helping communities better understand where overdoses were occurring and where resources might be most needed. And while the state distributed most of its naloxone to first responders and large agencies, families and grassroots organizations had fewer clear ways to get supplies, training, and the information they needed.
ARORP developed ReviveAR to address these opportunities and combined its functions with the existing app, Narcansas to create a single, statewide platform. Funded through opioid settlement dollars, the app provides step-by-step overdose response guidance, offers content in English, Spanish, and Marshallese, connects individuals and families to support services, and allows users to report overdose reversals. By combining prevention, response, recovery, and data collection tools in one place, ReviveAR was designed to strengthen Arkansas's overdose response infrastructure while supporting long-term sustainability and community access.
What They Built
ReviveAR is a free mobile app that any Arkansan can download. Its core feature is a guided naloxone reversal: rather than a slideshow, the app talks the user through the steps of saving someone with naloxone in real time. ARORP paid for transcription and voice recording so the same guidance is available in English, Spanish, and Marshallese, the three languages that reach the largest share of the state's residents.
Beyond the reversal walk-through, the app is a hub for the rest of ARORP's work. Users can request naloxone, find naloxone training, locate family support, and reach prevention, treatment, and recovery resources. It carries Arkansas Drug Take Back information and links to ARORP partner programs, so the people who download it for one reason discover the others. The design goal was to create a central location for users to locate needed resources.
Reporting is built into the app and is what makes it more than a directory. After a reversal, a user can report the save via a dedicated path, often accessed via a QR code. ARORP runs two QR codes: one to download the app and one to report. Reports flow through ARORP to the Office of the Arkansas State Drug Director, which compiles the data. The data is de-identified except for the agency or person who administered the dose, and ARORP sends those administrators a note of recognition for the save.
The app also feeds ARORP's wider naloxone work. Through the Naloxone Hero program, downloading ReviveAR is part of the training because most people carry their phones and can both save a life and report it on the same device. A contractor maintains the app, keeps provider listings and resources up to date, and tracks where overdoses and saves are concentrated, so ARORP can direct supplies and outreach to the places that need them.
Key Program Components
Who You Need at the Table
What made a willing partner essential vs. optional?
The required partners are the ones that keep the app accurate, funded, and connected to the state's data. ARORP owns and pays for the tool. The state drug director's office turns individual reports into a picture of where overdoses and reversals are happening. The contractor keeps the app working and up to date. Community coalitions and recovery communities put the app in front of the families and grassroots groups that the state's other naloxone channels were not reaching. Without those four, the app would either go stale, lose its reporting value, or never reach its audience.
Helpful partners widen the app's content and reach without being load-bearing. ARORP funds and promotes the partners it works with, so groups like the Hope Movement Coalition appear inside the app and give families a place to turn. Statewide associations help carry the app to every county and city. These relationships add content and visibility, but the core tool runs without any single one of them in place on day one.
Budget Breakdown
What is the minimum viable budget to replicate this?
The expensive part is the build, not the upkeep. ARORP invested approximately $296,000 to design, develop, administer, market, and launch ReviveAR. Following implementation, the app became relatively inexpensive to sustain, with annual operating costs of $8,750 for hosting and maintenance. Ongoing marketing and outreach cost are separate and depend on the level of promotional activity. A county with a small settlement allocation, even $12,000, cannot build a full custom app. Still, the model is scalable: a smaller community can buy or adapt a lighter version, focus on the one or two features that matter most locally, and budget for the annual hosting and a future platform migration. The non-negotiable cost beyond the build is marketing. ARORP is direct: an app no one knows about is an app no one uses, and promotion is often the hardest and most underestimated expense.
What Worked and Why
Specific decisions or design features that drove success
Owning the app and funding it with settlement dollars rather than federal grants was the decision that made the rest possible. The team had watched a federally funded predecessor become uncertain when its money was pulled. By building ReviveAR on opioid settlement funds that ARORP controls, they gave the tool a base that does not disappear when a single federal grant ends.
Designing the app to guide the user through a reversal in three languages changed who the tool could actually help. A recorded slideshow assumes a calm reader. A voice that walks a bystander through each step meets the panic of a real overdose. Recording that guidance in Spanish and Marshallese, not just English, opened the app to the language communities the prior tool had left out.
Building reporting into the same app that delivers the reversal closed the loop between saving a life and learning from it. Because reports flow through ARORP to the state drug director's office and come back as de-identified data linked to location, the app does double duty: it helps in the moment and shows the state where to send more naloxone next. Some people only want to spray and go, so ARORP kept reporting simple and paired it with recognition for those who do report.
By tying the app to everything else ARORP does, it built its audience without a separate campaign for each program. The Naloxone Hero training asks people to download it. Drug take-back events point to it. Every program ARORP touches carries the ReviveAR name. That made the app the connective tissue across ARORP's work, rather than a standalone product competing for attention.
Tracking how people move through the app gave the team a way to keep improving it. ARORP tracks downloads, impressions, and where users drop off or leave the app, and uses that data to keep people in the tool and fix the points where they get stuck. The same data, paired with save locations, tells ARORP where the need is greatest.
Early outcomes and data
~2,500 naloxone saves recorded through the reporting system since 2018, with most logged in the last two to three years.
Naloxone administration guidance is available in English, Spanish, and Marshallese.
De-identified save data routed through ARORP to the Office of the Arkansas State Drug Director, with recognition sent to the agency or person who administered the dose.
App analytics in use: downloads, impressions, click paths, and drop-off points tracked to improve the experience and direct outreach.
Two QR codes in circulation, one to download the app and one to report a save, for easy and low-cost access.
ReviveAR is embedded in ARORP's Naloxone Hero training and across its drug take-back and partner programs.
The prior state app, Narcansas, is merging into ReviveAR in 2026 to bring its first-responder and school distribution work under one unified tool.
Lessons Learned
Fund it for the long haul, not just the launch. The build is the expensive part. Once the app exists, hosting and maintenance costs run much less per year, but that cost never goes to zero, and a platform change will eventually require more. Plan the sustaining budget at the same time as the build budget.
Make the tool talk to the person, not at them. The single feature that set ReviveAR apart from its predecessor was a voice that walks a bystander through a reversal in real time, in their own language. It is designed for the moment of crisis, not for a calm reader.
Build reporting from the beginning. Because the same app that delivers a reversal also captures the save, ARORP can show the state where overdoses are happening and where to send naloxone next. Pair simple reporting with recognition so people have a reason to log a save.
Connect the app to everything else you do. ReviveAR grew its audience by riding along with every other ARORP program rather than competing for attention as a standalone product. The app became the thread that ties the work together.
Expect technology to keep moving. A platform that looks current at launch will age. ARORP plans for migration the way you plan to replace an aging vehicle, and keeps money set aside so an update never catches the program flat-footed.