This podcast, hosted by the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Use Program (COSSUP), focuses on innovations and challenges of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs).
This podcast, part of the Comprehensive Opioid Abuse Program (or “COAP”) podcast series, provides insight into some of the innovations and challenges of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) as a data system tool to address prescription drug abuse, misuse, and overdoses. This podcast features some of the key people working to optimize the utilization of these state data systems: David “Dave” Hopkins, former program manager, Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting System (KASPER) at the Office of Inspector General; Rodd Kelly, Program Manager, Massachusetts PDMP at the Department of Public Health; Chris Baumgartner, Drug Systems Director, Washington State Department of Health; Meghna Patel, Deputy Secretary, Health Innovation at the Pennsylvania Department of Health; and Michelle Ricco-Jonas, PDMP Director, New Hampshire Board of Pharmacy. The podcast discusses innovations across PDMPs and some of the challenges facing them. PDMPs are data systems run by government agencies, particularly at the state level, and they contain information about controlled substance prescription drugs that are dispensed by pharmacies and dispensing practitioners. These types of drugs are deemed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as having medical value, but at the same time, all the potential for abuse, such as opioid analgesics and stimulant drugs. PDMPs exist in every state in the U.S. plus the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico.