Opioid system upgrade to aid doctors, pharmacists
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Gov. Eric Holcomb announced changes that he hopes will be a big step forward in fighting the opioid crisis.
The goal is to make it easier for doctors and pharmacists to see if patients are being overprescribed medicine.
Many Hoosiers are getting doctor’s notes for prescription drugs. The state reports more than 1 million prescriptions in June of this year alone.
And while doctors and pharmacists can track patients’ medical records and prescription history online, pharmacists said there have been separate logins and it has been hard to tell when a patient last received a prescription.
“We’re given just a couple minutes to be thinking about the appropriateness of the therapy for the patients,” said Jennifer Buehrle, the Kroger Pharmacy patient care coordinator.
Buehrle said another challenge is seeing if another dose is necessary or if a patient has previously abused prescription drugs.
“You’re thinking through a lot of these different pieces and parts because it’s just given to you as a list,” she said.
So Thursday afternoon, Holcomb announced the online system called INSPECT is being upgraded statewide so with one click doctors and pharmacists can see medical histories and learn when their prescriptions are supposed to expire.
“More confident in the assessment that you’re making,” Buehrle said. You know that you have the information available regarding safety, so you’re given a score that helps you know in a couple seconds this is someone who is at risk of potentially having a dosage that it is too high.”
Kroger Pharmacies was one of two entities around the state allowed to pilot the upgrade, which is from Appriss Health.
The hopes are high from state leaders.
“We hope it will increase searches, save lives,” said Sen. Erin Houchin, a Republican from Salem.
“It’s going to help us all. That’s what it’s all about. It’s going to help doctors, it’s going to help patients, it’s going to help taxpayers,” Holcomb said.
Last year, the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation reported nearly 300,000 Hoosiers used opioid pain-relievers for “non-medical use,” making those people 40 times more likely to become a heroin addict.
The report said drug overdoses killed more than 1,000 Hoosiers in 2014.
State leaders hope this upgrade can help this trend head south.
“We have to stop the problem at its source, really, to stop addicts before they become addicts,” Houchin said.
Indiana is the seventh state to use Appriss Health’s software. While this cannot stop doctors who are knowingly overprescribing, state leaders said, the other six states with similar programs in place have seen significant drops in opioids prescribed.