Implementation of Enhancements to and Expansion of the Massachusetts Prescription Monitoring Program

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 (PDMP). Prescription drug monitoring programs enhance the capacity of regulatory and law enforcement agencies and public health officials 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.

The Prescription Drug Monitoring Program assists states as they plan, implement, or enhance a PDMP. PDMPs: build a state-level data collection and analysis system to enhance the capacity of regulatory and law enforcement agencies and public health officials for future prevention efforts; enhance existing programs' abilities to analyze and use collected data to identify drug abuse trends and increase the number of users of the PDMP; facilitate national evaluation efforts to ensure continued support; encourage the exchange of information among states to prevent cross-border diversion; assess the efficiency and effectiveness of programs to ensure continued state-level support; and, enhance collaborations with law enforcement, prosecutors, treatment professionals, the medical community, and pharmacies to establish a comprehensive PDMP strategy.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) seeks to undertake initiatives that complement their current Bureau of Justice Assistance and Harold Rogers grant projects by implementing the following project goals with the 2009 Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program funds.

GOAL 1) Establish newly authorized program of unsolicited and solicited Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) reports for prescribers and pharmacies. Massachusetts (MA) published amended regulations, effective January 1, 2009, that will significantly improve the PMP. The 2009 grant will help implement the amended regulations. Utilizing the new authority, the MA PMP proposes to begin distribution of unsolicited and solicited reports to prescribers and pharmacies on patients exhibiting prescription activity suggestive of doctor shopping; providing unsolicited reports have shown to be more effective than providing only solicited reports to end-users.

GOAL 2) Implement enhanced PMP reports for law enforcement and regulatory agencies. The collection of patient specific identifying information, when analyzed with the patient matching software to be procured, described in Goal 1, will enable the PMP to develop significantly improved solicited and unsolicited reports for law enforcement and regulatory agencies.

GOAL 3) Develop an implementation plan for MA PMP entry into the PMP Interstate Information Exchange (PMIX): it is essential for MDPH to develop an implementation plan for the PMP data base system to enter into the PMP Interstate Information Exchange (PMIX) and become interoperable with other states' PMPs through the Hub being established by the BJA/IJIS Institute PMP Committee. PMIX provides for the PMP a standard and the capability to facilitate the interstate exchange of data on dispensed controlled substance prescriptions.

CA/NCF