Alaska nurse practitioners' barriers to use of prescription drug monitoring programs

Abstract

Background and purpose: 

Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) have begun to demonstrate themselves as useful tools in enhancing safe and responsible prescription of controlled substances. The purpose of this project was to describe current practice, beliefs, and barriers of Alaska nurse practitioners (NPs) regarding the Alaska PDMP.

Methods: 

A questionnaire was sent to 635 Alaskan NPs with a 33% return rate. The data depicted prescribing habits, barriers to use, barriers to registering, and opinions on how to make the PDMP more clinically useful.

Conclusions: 

More attention is needed to maximize PDMP exposure and incorporation into daily workflow if it is to achieve full potential. Registered users should be able to delegate PDMP authority to select staff members to reduce time commitments and increase usage. Many providers felt that assigning unique patient identifiers could prevent consumers from filling prescriptions under aliases. Finally, an overwhelming majority of users wanted faster data entry and proactive reports.

Implications for practice: 

This project explored the differences between PDMP users and nonusers and outlined NP suggestions for process improvement. A better understanding of PDMP use will aid providers in safe prescribing while curbing the prescription drug epidemic and ultimately reducing abuse, misuse, and death from overdose.