Database Linked With Hospital EMR To Encourage Drug Monitoring

According to state officials, Colorado occupies the unenviable position of second worst in the US for prescription drug misuse, with more than 255,000 Coloradans misusing prescribed medications.

One way the state is fighting back is by running the Colorado Prescription Drug Monitoring Program which, like comparable efforts in other states, tracks prescriptions for controlled medications. Every regular business day, the state’s pharmacists upload prescription data for medications listed in Schedules II through V.

While this effort may have value, many physicians haven’t been using the database, largely because it can be difficult to access. In fact, historically physicians have been using the system only about 30 percent of the time when prescribing controlled substances, according to a story appearing in HealthLeaders Media.

As things stand, it can take physicians up to three minutes to access the data, given that they have to sign out of their EMR, visit the PDMP site, log in using separate credentials, click through to the right page, enter patient information and sort through possible matches before they got to the patient’s aggregated prescription history. Given the ugliness of this workflow, it’s no surprise that clinicians aren’t searching out PDMP data, especially if they don’t regard a patient as being at a high risk for drug abuse or diversion.

But perhaps taking some needless steps out of the process can make a difference, a theory which one of the state’s hospitals is testing. Colorado officials are hoping a new pilot program linking the PDMP database to an EMR will foster higher use of the data by physicians. The pilot, funded by a federal grant through the Bureau of Justice Assistance, connects the drug database directly to the University of Colorado Hospital’s Epic EMR.

The project began with a year-long building out phase, during which IT leaders created a gateway connecting the PDMP database and the Epic installation. Several months ago, the team followed up with a launch at the school of medicine’s emergency medicine department. Eventually, the PDMP database will be available in five EDs which have a combined total of 270,000 visits per year, HealthLeaders notes.

Under the pilot program, physicians can access the drug database with a single click, directly from within the Epic EMR system. Once the PDMP database was made available, the pilot brought physicians on board gradually, moving from evaluating their baseline use, giving clinicians raw data, giving them data using a risk-stratification tool and eventually requiring that they use the tool.

Researchers guiding the pilot are evaluating whether providers use the PDMP more and whether it has an impact on high-risk patients. Researchers will also analyze what happened to patients a year before, during and a year after their ED visits, using de-identified patient data.

It’s worth pointing out that people outside of Colorado are well aware of the PDMP access issue. In fact, the ONC has been paying fairly close attention to the problem of making PDMP data more accessible. That being said, the agency notes that integrating PDMPs with other health IT systems won’t come easily, given that no uniform standards exist for linking prescription drug data with health IT systems. ONC staffers have apparently been working to develop a standard approach for delivering PDMP data to EMRs, pharmacy systems and health information exchanges.

However, at present it looks like custom integration will be necessary. Perhaps pilots like this one will lead by example.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

1 Comment

  • This is really exciting and disappointing news. Exciting because they’re finally pushing this information down to the clinician at the point of care. Disappointing that it took a year long project to make it a reality. That’s sad!

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