Optimizing Maryland's Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP)

HAROLD ROGERS PDMP FY2021 COMPETITIVE GRANT

O-BJA-2021-49001

MARYLAND DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH 

PROPOSAL ABSTRACT
 

Maryland Department of Health’s Office of Provider Engagement and Regulation (OPER) has prioritized creating a Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) infrastructure supportive of reporting, data analytics, and improved healthcare practitioner, investigative user, and PDMP administrative staff experience in service of the public health surveillance needs of Maryland. Enhancements are needed to manage and streamline PDMP data and to improve PDMP functionality to align with national best practices and state priorities. Fine-tuning the existing technology and keeping up with industry standards is a continual effort worthy of investment to keep clinical tools relevant to the evolving nature of the opioid epidemic and technology landscape. Maryland continues to see rising numbers of fatal overdoses and non-fatal opioid-related overdoses treated at Maryland emergency rooms and recognizes that healthcare providers serve an important role in preventing future overdoses.

Through this grant, OPER will further improve the use of PDMP data by enhancing the PDMP infrastructure, developing a training program for future system users, supporting collaborations with community stakeholders, improving the quality and accuracy of the PDMP data, and improving the health practitioner experience of accessing clinical tools. Maryland prescribers, dispensers, future prescribers and dispensers, investigators, community members, and public health staff will benefit from these improvements.

The main objectives of this proposal are to enhance Maryland’s PDMP to align with industry standards and to better support the use of PDMP data in real-time clinical decision-making (Obj1), to develop a test environment and curriculum for clinical users (Obj2), to strengthen the reporting of opioid-related data to community stakeholders by developing a public-facing dashboard and by building a database structure that allows for PDMP data to be linked to other datasets (Obj 3), to improve patient matching and provider reporting (Obj 4), and to create a provider workflow to connect providers to supportive clinical tools (Obj 5). To achieve the objectives of this grant, the Maryland PDMP will leverage and build upon significant groundwork laid from years of innovative expansion of PDMP and stakeholder collaboration.

Enhancements created through this grant will be based on recommendations from the PDMP Advisory Board, Investigative Users, and Clinical User pilots and surveys, and from collaborations with other states’ PDMP staff. PDMP seeks input from relevant stakeholders to ensure the data products and clinical tools will be useful to end users.