Ohio is deploying a new tool to fight prescription drug abuse. The State of Ohio’s Board of Pharmacy www.pharmacy.ohio.gov recently announced that an upgrade will be made available to the state’s prescription drug monitoring program known as the “Ohio Automated Rx Reporting System” (OARRS) www.pharmacy.ohio.gov/oarrs on the website November 20, 2017.
The system will provide prescribers and pharmacists with advanced analytics and tools to promote patient safety and help to assist in clinical decision-making. The upgrade to OARRS using Appriss Health’s NarxCare® platform offers several key features:
- The system can calculate a patient’s possible risk for overdose and addiction
- Provides red flags to alert prescribers of a potential patient safety issue
- Provides for an interactive visualization of prescription data
- Contains a messaging option enabling communication with other healthcare providers
- Has the ability to search for local addiction treatment providers.
Ohio has been strengthening their prescription drug monitoring program and as a result, the ability for individuals to see multiple prescribers to obtain controlled substances illicitly has decreased substantially with the total number of opiates dispensed to patients now down 20 percent over a four year period.