NMDOH Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Site-based Program: Data-driven Responses to Prescription Drug Misuse

The Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) is being incorporated into the FY 2017 Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Site-based Program. The purpose of this program is to improve collaboration and strategic decision-making of regulatory and law enforcement agencies and public health officials to address prescription drug and opioid misuse, save lives, and reduce crime. This is made possible through the collection and analysis of controlled substance prescription data and other scheduled chemical products through a centralized database administered by an authorized state agency. The Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Site-based program was developed as part of the CARA legislation signed into law on July 22, 2016. In FY 2017, the Data-driven Responses to Opioid Abuse category of funding available through the PDMP grant program will provide funding and technical assistance to state agencies and units of local government located in states with existing and operational prescription drug monitoring programs and federally recognized Indian tribal governments. Funding must be used to form a multidisciplinary action group that may include (but is not limited to): the district attorney’s office, the state or local health department, state medical and pharmacy boards, police and sheriff departments, probation and parole, drug court representatives, child welfare representatives, local drug treatment providers, and community organizations. Grant funds may also be used to support a combination of the allowable use categories to develop multi-disciplinary projects that leverage key data sets; examine the impact of various policies and procedures on patient and community-level outcomes, and implement proven practices on a larger scale; identify geographic areas or populations at greatest risk for prescription drug and opioid misuse and overdose deaths and create data-driven responses at the local or state level; determine best practices for sharing data across diverse stakeholders; implement other innovative activities that demonstrate a multi-disciplinary, data-driven approach to addressing the opioid epidemic and assess the impact of specific policy or practice changes on PDMP utilization and/or patient or community-level outcomes.

The New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) will partner with Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center in Santa Fe County, and Presbyterian Espanola Hospital, in Rio Arriba County to expand the identification of individuals of drug overdoses from these two hospitals to the NMDOH and ensure a peer support worker is providing information on treatment resources to those who survive an overdose. The overall goal is to ensure patients who have overdosed have access to treatment and thus end the cycle of overdose deaths. Naloxone will also be purchased through this grant to distribute. The Prescription Drug Overdose Prevention Coordinator and Peer Support Worker will provide data for the grant reporting as well as to track and analyze overdose surveillance data.

CA/NCF