$1.4M Grant Supports PDMP EHR Integration to Combat Opioid Crisis

The Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) is expanding its effort to address the opioid crisis with $1.4 million in grant funding to support PDMP EHR integration throughout New Jersey.

Health experts say PDMPs enable better prescribing practices, target treatment to at-risk patients, monitor the use of opioid painkillers, and mitigate the risk of potential abuse or fraud by patients who obtain prescriptions from multiple providers.

These state-run electronic databases are utilized in nearly every state across the country. The program assembles pharmacy and patient data from Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) controlled substances and prescription drugs list. 

“The NJPMP is a highly effective tool in our fight against the opioid crisis. It helps ensure that prescribers and pharmacists have access to key signs of abuse and addiction,” Cari Fais, acting director of the Division of Consumer Affairs, said in a press release. “These enhancements to the NJPMP will prevent opioids from falling into the wrong hands and will make the NJPMP an even stronger and more user-friendly tool for clinicians.”

Since the NJPMP began operating in 2011, more than 53,000 prescribers and 8,100 pharmacists have had access to the platform, representative of nearly 97 percent of eligible prescribers.

Additionally, the EHR-integrated platform contains over 137 million controlled substance, human growth hormone, and gabapentin prescriptions from more than 3,300 New Jersey licensed pharmacies. 

The funding opportunity will further support the NJPMP’s EHR integration and expand the state-wide effort to regulate the abuse, misuse, and diversion of controlled substances.

In particular, the grant will enhance NJPMP information, reporting, quality, and integrity.

Primarily, the funding will be allocated toward implementing an Investigation Alerts Module to enable real-time notification when a prescriber under investigation is filing a prescription.

An interactive dashboard is another priority investment area for NJPMP to bolster public health initiatives, create targeted interventions, identify state prescriptive trends, and improve data-driven policy. The board will contain nearly 137 million prescription records starting from 2011.

Additionally, the federal funds will support the development of an Interactive Reporting Module, allowing health data sharing of NJPMP data and analytics for state investigations.

“The reporting module will create a secure online portal for the Division’s drug diversion investigators to access interactive reports and will aid in their investigations by automating the NJPMP data analysis process,” stated attorney general Matthew J. Platkin and acting director for NJ CARE Kelly E. Levy, according to the press release.

Alongside these advancements, the grant also aims to streamline the NJPMP reporting exemption process and implement NJPMP program modifications.

“I am proud that the federal government has recognized the NJPMP’s innovative work with an award of over $1 million in competitive funds,” said Attorney General Platkin. “Combating the opioid crisis requires us to use every tool in the toolbox, and these grant dollars, together with funding already provided by the Murphy Administration to bolster our efforts, means that we will remain on the cutting edge of technological solutions to address this national public health crisis.”

These moves to improve follow efforts by Wisconsin to increase accessibility of its electronic PDMP by removing cost barriers.

In a previous Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services Controlled Substances Board survey, the findings indicated that few providers were taking advantage of all features of the ePDMP system. By removing start-up and monthly fees, the department hopes to expand provider access to ePDMP, a key tool in combatting the opioid epidemic.