Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2006, $400,000)
In Fiscal Year 2006, Congress appropriated $7,500,000 to the U.S. Department of Justice to support the Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program. Prescription monitoring programs are systems where controlled substance dispensing data is submitted to a centralized database administered by an authorized state agency. These programs are designed to help prevent and detect the diversion and abuse of pharmaceutical controlled substances, particularly at the retail level where no other automated information collection system exists.
States that have implemented prescription drug monitoring programs have the capability of collecting and analyzing prescription data much more efficiently than states without such programs, where the collection of prescription information requires the manual review of pharmacy files which is a very time consuming and invasive process. The increased efficiency of prescription monitoring programs allows for the early detection of abuse trends and possible sources of diversion. The analysis of collected data also allows for the identification of outmoded prescribing practices, such as the undertreatment of pain, which may result in the development of educational programs for medical professionals.
While Kentucky has made a great deal of progress in 2004-2005 toward realizing the full potential of the Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting (KASPER), much work remains to be done. To that end, the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services has targeted seven areas for new and continued development with 2006 grant funds:
1. Increasing the number of KASPER users through marketing and educational outreach.
2. Establishing processes for sharing Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) data with other states; with a focus on bordering states.
3. Increasing the use of KASPER trend reports to identify potential prescription drug problem areas.
4. Enhancing user surveys and data analysis efforts to measure the effectiveness of KASPER and identify ways to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the system.
5. Increasing prescription drug abuse prevention efforts.
6. Investigating how KASPER can be integrated with ePrescribing systems and processes.
7. Investigating and implementing methods to improve the timely collection of prescription data.
CA/NCF