Prescription Drug Monitoring Program

Excerpt

Opioids, benzodiazepines, stimulants, and other controlled substances are widely prescribed in the medical field, but these medications may also be misused, abused or diverted for nonmedical purposes. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), opioid use (prescription and illicit) was involved in the deaths of 42,249 people in 2016, representing a 5-fold increase from 1999 (Drug Overdose Death Data, CDC). One contributing factor is the increased number of total opioid prescriptions administered. Despite the quadrupling of prescribed opioid sales in the United States from 1999 to 2014, there has not been an observed change in the overall pain Americans report.

The Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) was implemented to help mitigate prescription misuse and diversion, as well as to monitor and analyze prescription and dispensing data for controlled substances. The PDMP system consists of independent statewide electronic databases that track prescriptions of controlled substances within that particular state. This data can be utilized by health authorities to obtain timely information on prescribing practices and patient behaviors. The concept of the PDMP dates back as early as 1918 in the state of New York, while California maintains the oldest continuously operating PDMP program since 1939. Oklahoma was the first state to establish a technologically modern PDMP that collected and distributed prescription data electronically in 1991. Despite its longstanding conceptual history, many states have only recently started to form PDMPs within the last 2 decades.