Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2010, $400,000)
Beginning in FY 2002, Congress appropriated funding to the U.S. Department of Justice to support the Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP). Prescription monitoring programs 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 monitoring programs have the capability to collect and analyze prescription data much more efficiently than states without such programs, where the collection of prescription information requires the manual review of pharmacy files, a time-consuming and invasive process.
The Prescription Drug Monitoring Program assists states as they plan, implement, or enhance a PDMP to: 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, identify and address sources of diversion, and increase the number of users of the PDMP; facilitate and participate in national evaluation efforts to assess efficiency and effectiveness; encourage and implement the exchange of information among states to prevent cross-border diversion; assess the efficiency and effectiveness of state-level programs to make improvements and encourage additional states to implement programs; and, enhance collaborations with law enforcement, prosecutors, treatment professionals, the medical community, and pharmacies to establish a comprehensive PDMP strategy.
Alabama Department of Public Health will use the grant to enhance Alabama's electronic controlled substance prescription database. The goals of this program are: implement interoperability with PDMP states to combat the epidemic of prescription drug diversion, abuse, and misuse; reduce the number of illegal controlled substance prescriptions from being dispensed; reduce the time and effort required by law enforcement and regulatory investigators to explore leads and assess the merits of possible drug diversion cases; educate practitioners, pharmacists, law enforcement, policy makers, and the public about the existence and extent of prescription drug abuse, diversion, diversion scams, and misuse; and promote education of appropriate use of controlled prescription drugs.
CA/NCF