Data-Driven Multidisciplinary Approaches to Reducing Rx Abuse

The Kentucky Injury Prevention and Research Center, a bona fide agent for the Kentucky State Department for Public Health (DPH), Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS), seeks to pilot an innovative approach to combating and reducing prescription drug abuse within the context of Kentucky’s existing and operational prescription drug monitoring program (PMDP) under Category 3: Data-Driven Multidisciplinary Approaches to Reducing Rx Abuse. Grant funding will be used to: 1) expand existing multi-agency collaborations to form a multidisciplinary Action Group of criminal justice professionals, health authorities, and treatment providers with expertise in prescription (Rx) drug abuse prevention, treatment, policy, and enforcement toward the goal of identifying evidence-based practices to address the Rx drug abuse/overdose in communities at high risk; 2) establish data sharing agreements and multi-source state-level data collection (death certificates, medical examiner records, toxicology, inpatient hospital, and ED data) to enhance the use of state PDMP data (the Kentucky All Scheduled Prescription Electronic Reporting [KASPER] data) in addressing Rx drug abuse in Kentucky; 3) analyze multi-source data to identify communities and populations at high risk and identify necessary risk mitigation actions through Action Group recommendations; 4) enhance KASPER capabilities for detecting harmful Rx practices and illegal use through implementation of new search algorithms and proactive reporting; and 5) provide local area data to the Kentucky communities to guide their data-driven Rx drug abuse education, outreach, treatment, enforcement, and prevention activities. Anticipated outcomes include 1) development of multi-source data collection and sharing practices, 2) formation of a sustainable Action Group, 3) sustainable reporting developed during the grant period; 4) increased local community capacity to develop data-driven programs using grant-supported analyses. The CHFS Office of Inspector General (OIG) is responsible for the KASPER operation. In 2012 the Kentucky legislature mandated prescriber and pharmacist KASPER registration and prescriber KASPER usage. KASPER meets these priority considerations: • Authority and capability to exchange information with other state PDMPs in compliance with the PMIX Architecture. • Ability to share statistical and/or de-identified prescription data with researchers for tracking trends in drug usage and abuse, analysis of patient demographics, or identifying geographical areas of usage and abuse. • Required electronic submission of data for prescriptions in Schedules II, III, IV and V. • Access to data by federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement and public health officials, and regulatory boards. • Confidentiality, security and privacy provisions regarding the data. • Education and outreach to stakeholders on accessing and utilizing prescription history reports