PastRx Benefits for Clinicians
PastRx makes it practical to check every patient for controlled substance prescription risks. PastRx benefits include automating the chore of report retrieval, enhancing the data retrieved, and saving both you and your staff time. PastRx performs multiple checks to make you aware of patient risks.
PastRx Benefits – Improved PDMP Compliance
PastRx benefits include:
- Valuable medical information at a glance
- Ability to drill down for more detail
- Automatic checks for many patient risks
- Reduction in clerical work
- Records of compliance
PastRx benefits provide consistent, thorough check letting clinicians know patient history and identify potential abusers early. PastRx provides evidence for clinicians to treat with confidence. Earlier identification of risks can help you get patients the care they need sooner.
Follow Prescription Advisory
In 2012, both New York and Tennessee required prescribers to check their state’s PDMP before prescribing painkillers.
The results one year later:
New York realized a 75% drop and Tennessee a 36% drop in patients who were seeing multiple prescribers to obtain the same drugs.
A study was conducted to estimate the societal costs of prescription opioid abuse, dependence, and misuse in the United States. Costs were grouped into three categories: health care, workplace, and criminal justice.
The results: Total US societal costs of prescription opioid abuse were estimated at $55.7 billion in 2007 (USD in 2009). Workplace costs accounted for $25.6 billion, health care costs accounted for $25.0 billion, and criminal justice costs accounted for $5.1 billion. Workplace costs were driven by lost earnings from premature death ($11.2 billion) and reduced compensation/lost employment ($7.9 billion).
Conclusions: The costs of prescription opioid abuse represent a substantial and growing economic burden for the society. The increasing prevalence of abuse suggests an even greater societal burden in the future.
An improved PDMP … with accurate and timely data analysis should be regarded as the cornerstone of our collective efforts to address prescription drug abuse.
You’re not only reducing the supply [of pain medications] for those who use them inappropriately, but also for those in need.
Recommendations for full use of PDMP include:
- PDMPs can be effective clinical tools in medication management involving controlled substances.
- PDMPs should be available for clinicians across state boundaries.
- Every prescribing clinician should be familiar with the process of accessing and utilizing information from PDMP’s so that they can incorporate this information in their practices.
Effective monitoring systems [PDMPs] will augment clinical judgment, provide evidence of misuse, and facilitate prescription of the most appropriate analgesic for the situation…The Emergency Department is regarded as the nation’s safety net…the last bastion of around-the-clock access to care … Unfortunately, some of the solutions to opioid misuse [limiting ED physicians to 3-day opioid prescriptions] preempts judgments from trained emergency medical providers.
Emergency Physicians must balance under-treatment of pain with concerns about drug diversion and doctor shopping. Use of a state PDMP may help identify patients who are at high risk for prescription opioid diversion or doctor shopping… To quantify the effects of PDMPs, studies were conducted of ED providers who cared for adult patients with pain. Of the patients with complete data in one study, information from the state’s PDMP System altered prescribing practice in 41%. Knowledge of the information provided had an important impact.
Doctors (and other clinicians) need to know what prescriptions have been given to their patients by other practitioners. This information should be included in the patients’ electronic health care records accessible through a Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) that provides immediate information.
Thirteen multi-state PDMP projects were sponsored in 2012-13. While providers indicated that PDMPs gave them more confidence for prescribing pain medication, the study concluded that the easier the data is to obtain, the more they will be used, and the safer the practice can be.
The use of PDMPs…is helping to reduce misuse of prescription drugs.
Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) are now active in most states to assist clinicians in identifying potential controlled drug misuse, diversion, or excessive prescribing. Little is still known about the ways in which they are incorporated into workflow and clinical decision making, what barriers continue to exist, and how clinicians are sharing PDMP results with their patients.
Design
Qualitative data were collected through online focus groups and telephone interviews.Setting
Clinicians from pain management, emergency and family medicine, psychiatry/behavioral health, rehabilitation medicine, internal medicine and dentistry participated.Patients
Thirty-five clinicians from nine states participated.Methods
We conducted two online focus groups and seven telephone interviews. A multidisciplinary team then used a grounded theory approach coupled with an immersion–crystallization strategy for identifying key themes in the resulting transcripts.Results
Some participants, mainly from pain clinics, reported checking the PDMP with every patient, every time. Others checked only for new patients, for new opioid prescriptions, or for patients for whom they suspected abuse. Participants described varied approaches to sharing PDMP information with patients, including openly discussing potential addiction or safety concerns, avoiding discussion altogether, and approaching discussion confrontationally. Participants described patient anger or denial as a common response and noted the role of patient satisfaction surveys as an influence on prescribing.Conclusion
Routines for accessing PDMP data and how clinicians respond to it vary widely. As PDMP use becomes more widespread, it will be important to understand what approaches are most effective for identifying and addressing unsafe medication use.
The AAOS recommends the following tools, which have been shown to significantly reduce medication errors:
- computerized physician order entry
- computerized decision support systems
- computerized monitoring of adverse drug events
- pharmacist-assisted rounds
- high-risk drug protocols
Overdose deaths are “just the tip of the iceberg”: that for every death there are many more hospital treatment admissions, emergency room visits, people who abuse or are dependent on prescription drugs and nonmedical users.
The abuse of opioid pain medication has a devastating impact on public health and safety in this country, killing 46 people every day… Prescription Drug poisoning deaths – now over 30,000/yr – outnumber deaths from motor vehicle crashes.
What prescribers can do to safely and effectively use opioids for CNCP (includes the following)
- Screen for prior or current substance abuse/misuse
- Do not use concomitant sedative–hypnotics or benzodiazepines
- Track daily MED using an online dosing calculator
- Use the state Prescription Drug Monitoring Program to monitor all sources of controlled substances
Whenever possible, orthopaedic surgeons should request and review old medical records and speak with the patient’s primary physician about past medication problems. Currently, states have Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs designed to assist law enforcement in the identification of doctor shoppers; these data are also accessible to physicians.
The use of PDMPs…is helping to reduce misuse of prescription drugs.
PDMPs have many limitations in their current format, including complex access issues, timeliness, and whether the data are presented to the physician automatically or require physician effort to retrieve.
When a clinician is prescribing a controlled substance, readily available information about the drugs that a patient is receiving from other providers can be a critically important component of the decision-making process…Increasingly, these [PDMP] programs have evolved into a useful tool for the clinician who must incorporate careful risk management into the prescribing of opioid analgesics or any other controlled substance.
Increasingly, these programs have evolved into a useful tool for the clinician who must incorporate careful risk management into the prescribing of opioid analgesics or any other controlled substance Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs Serve a Vital Clinical Need.
The CDC advises providers to use PDMPs… States should consider ways to increase their use … available real-time, and alerts to prescribers.
Doctors (and other clinicians) need to know what prescriptions have been given to their patients by other practitioners. This information should be included in the patients’ electronic health care records accessible through a Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) that provides immediate information.