Indiana announces plans to integrate PDMP data into EHRs across the state

Indiana will integrate prescription drug data into EHRs at hospitals and physician practices across the state, Gov. Eric Holcomb announced on Thursday. The decision follows a growing trend among states across the country to make opioid prescription data more accessible to physicians.

Indiana’s prescription drug monitoring program, called INSPECT, will be built into health system EHRs and pharmacy management systems to allow clinicians to quickly access a patient’s history of controlled substances to reduce doctor shopping along with fraudulent and inappropriate prescribing. Holcomb said the INSPECT integration would be phased in over the next three years “at no cost to the facility or individual practitioner.”

Holcomb added that Indiana is the seventh state to launch a statewide PDMP integration with EHRs.

“INSPECT helps healthcare professionals around the state limit the number of controlled-substance prescriptions that contribute to our state’s devastating drug crisis,” Holcomb said in an announcement from the Indiana Professional Licensing Agency (IPLA), which has already pilot-tested the approach in two hospital systems.

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Holcomb’s announcement comes several months after Michigan Gov. Brian Calley launched a similar initiative, backed by $2.1 million in state and federal funding. Experts have said physicians would be more likely to check PDMP data before prescribing if it was easier to access. 

Increasingly states and hospitals are turning to data to combat opioid addiction, and a White House commission has called for state and federal PDMPs to be completely interoperable by the middle of next year.  

Meanwhile, President Trump has declared the opioid epidemic a national emergency, but his administration has not yet filed the paperwork to make that designation official.