The system allows physicians logged into Yale’s EHR to quickly identify which patients are at high risk for adverse events and overdose.
In an effort to fight opioid abuse, Yale New Haven Health and Yale School of Medicine have integrated its EHR with the Connecticut Prescription Monitoring and Reporting System (CPRMS).
Although Connecticut has a database of opioid and other controlled prescription information, the stand-alone system is considered cumbersome and has created barriers to clinicians’ use, reports Yale. Physicians have had to access separate systems with different logins, requiring a break in their workflows.
It’s not a problem unique to Connecticut: Research has shown that despite the growing number of online prescription drug databases that aim to counter the misuse of opioids and other controlled substances, many physicians don't use them.
Yale’s new, integrated system allows physicians logged into its Epic EHR to quickly identify which patients are at high risk for adverse events and overdose. With one click, physicians can then access the NarxCare system from Appriss Health, which provides a full detailed report of a patient’s opioid and other controlled prescription history.
“Our physicians throughout Yale New Haven Health will now have the critical information they need to make the best prescribing and medical decisions to improve the safety of our patients,” Allen Hsiao, MD, FAAP, chief medical information officer and associate professor of pediatrics and emergency Medicine at Yale School of Medicine, said in a statement.
A similar effort was launched earlier this year at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, which linked the Colorado Prescription Drug Monitoring Program with the University of Colorado Hospital's EHR/EMR.
Researcher Jason Hoppe, DO, an associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, told HealthLeaders in March that before the two systems were linked, it could take up to three minutes for clinicians to make their way through the PDMP, compared to two seconds for the linked pilot system.
Alexandra Wilson Pecci is an editor for HealthLeaders.
