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MOUNT PROSPECT, Ill. — The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) plans to keep providing state prescription monitoring programs (PMPs) access to its PMP InterConnect at no cost.
NABP said PMP InterConnect access will remain free to participating states beyond 2018 so they can focus their resources and federal grants to support PMP operations.
Currently, 42 states have executed memorandums of understanding to be part of PMP InterConnect, while 33 PMPs are active and 40 states are slated to be active by the end of 2016, according to NABP.
“NABP PMP InterConnect is the only national network of state-based PMPs. It furthers the mission of the boards of pharmacy and NABP, as well as other state agencies, to protect public health by assisting health care providers in identifying doctor shopping and diversion of controlled substances, as well as confirming which patients are legitimately receiving such prescriptions,” NABP President Hal Wand said in a statement.
PMPs give health care providers and appropriate law enforcement agencies with access to a record of patients’ controlled substance medication histories. PMP InterConnect enhances the benefits of state PMPs by allowing authorized users in the United States to access PMP data from across state lines for a more complete patient record, NABP noted.
NABP said its commitment to fully support PMP InterConnect will remove any resource roadblocks that states face to identifying patients with prescription drug abuse and misuse problems, especially if those patients are crossing state lines to obtain drugs. Participating state PMPs that use the secure communications exchange platform — which doesn’t store data — have access to information that can be an effective means of combating drug diversion and drug abuse nationwide, the board noted.
Launched in 2011, PMP InterConnect processes more than 2.7 million requests and 4.5 million responses per month for consolidated multistate PMP reports.
