Washington State Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program

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.

The grant recipient will use the implementation grant to directly link healthcare providers, pharmacies, pharmacists, law enforcement, and licensing boards with a prescription drug monitoring data system and engage these groups in requesting accounts for using the system. Grant funds will provide data and allow for law enforcement officials investigating crimes to receive patient prescription data. In addition, the prescription drug monitoring system will enable healthcare providers to access patient level controlled substance prescription records and encourage practitioners to communicate with each other, use brief intervention schedule techniques to access substance abuse and encourage referral for treatment when indicated, and provide support for accessing the appropriate management of pain.

Washington State Department of Health will use implementation grant funds to complete the implementation of the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program. The four program goals are to improve prescribers' ability to prescribe appropriate medications; reduce the number of individuals attempting to engage in the misuse or abuse of controlled substances; reduce the diversion of controlled substances; and reduce deaths caused by controlled substances. The grant deliverables will be as follows: implement an electronic system to collect, store and report controlled substance dispensing information; retain personnel to manage the prescription drug monitoring program; train users on how to use the systems and what the benefits of the system are; produce and distribute threshold reports; and share trend information with stakeholders.

CA/NCF