Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2007, $400,000)
Since the beginning of FY 2002, Congress has appropriated funding to the U.S. Department of Justice to support the Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program. Prescription drug monitoring programs enhance the capacity of regulatory and law enforcement agencies to collect and analyze controlled substance prescription data through 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 drug monitoring programs allows for the early detection of abuse trends and possible sources of diversion.
Kentucky has made significant progress in developing Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting (KASPER) into a vital tool for health care providers and law enforcement. The KASPER system is the state's Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) designed to identify potential controlled substance prescription drug abusers, doctor shoppers, and diverters. KASPER provides health care providers with a tool they can use to identify and intervene with patients that are addicted to or abusing controlled substances before they become drug diverters, and a tool for law enforcement to aid in investigations of doctor shoppers and drug diverting patients and providers. Dispensers have up to 8 days to report controlled substance prescriptions they have dispensed. The data is made available to authorized users including health care practitioners, pharmacists, law enforcement officers (for a bona fide drug investigation), licensing boards, the Medicaid Program, subpoena by a grand jury, and for judges, probation and parole officers administering a drug diversion or probation program.
The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services will use their 2007 Prescription Drug Monitoring Program funds to address the following: increase the utilization of KASPER by health care and law enforcement; enhance the analysis of KASPER data; increase the sharing of PMP data with other states; evaluate the effectiveness of KASPER; and, increase education and prevention efforts.
CA/NCF