“Health IT Now, an advocacy organization, has created the Opioid Safety Alliance, a working group comprised of 18 tech companies, pharmacies, associations and councils. The collective was tasked with exploring how technology and data could help address the opioid crisis.
“What we found was a problem in getting the right information in front of the provider to make an informed clinical decision,” says Executive Director Joel White.
The key strategy the alliance calls for is a national prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) that addresses three challenges in the existing state-based PDMPs.”
- Data latency: Typically PDMP data is not reported or seen in real time, and some data can be up to a month old.
- Interoperability: The state systems don’t exchange data. While progress is being made, it’s slow and expensive.
- Selective data: PDMP data collection tracks prescription fills but doesn’t track attempts to shop a prescription, a key problem with drug-seeking behavior.
Read more at: https://www.behavioral.net/article/prescription-drug-abuse/advocates-inch-closer-national-pdmp
Source: Behavioral.net – March 23, 2018
