Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2008, $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.
The West Virginia Board of Pharmacy (the Board) will use its FY 2008 Prescription Drug Monitoring Program grant funds to enhance its existing Controlled Substance Monitoring Program (CSMP) through the following activities: improvement of the current data collection and analysis system; development of the infrastructure to support programmatic activities; collaborations with treatment providers and court systems; facilitation of information sharing among states; collaborations with law enforcement and prosecutors; and increased training of and utilization by prescribers and pharmacies of the CSMP database.
The Board will contract with Technology Solutions to write enhancements to the CSMP database and implement the changes to the CSMP hardware and software. The Board will measure how many times the database is accessed in a given time period and who is running those reports. In addition, the Board will measure whether there is a reduction in the number of overdoses over a period of years within West Virginia and will track arrest and conviction data for prescription drug felonies within the state.
CA/NCF