Michigan boosts fight against opioids by building state prescription data into EHRs

Michigan officials are taking the state’s prescription drug monitoring program up a notch by plugging opioid data into hospital EHR systems across the state, cutting out an extra step for physicians accessing prescription information.

Backed by $2.1 million in state and federal funding, state officials want to boost the number of physicians using the Michigan Automated Prescription System (MAPS) from 28% to more than 80%, according to Crain’s Detroit Business. MAPS will initially be integrated with major EHR vendors like Cerner, McKesson and Epic, before moving on to smaller systems.

Integrating prescription data into EHR systems saves physicians the extra step of logging into MAPS. Lt. Gov. Brian Calley told Crain’s the integrated approach will “stem or reverse the addiction and overdose problem.”

 

The system will allow physicians to review a patient’s prescription history within the EHR and incorporate red flags for patients that are at risk of an overdose. Doctors have argued that integrating EHRs with PDMPs would optimize the database's effectiveness.

"If the data is accessible, easily accessible, and doesn't take time, every provider I know is happy to use it,” Rami Khoury, M.D., an emergency medicine physician at Henry Ford Allegiance in Jackson, Michigan told WWMT.com

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State lawmakers have grappled with the idea of making MAPS a requirement for physicians—something physicians generally oppose—but the state’s newest approach generated support from the Michigan State Medical Society.

Nationwide, experts have urged physicians to take advantage of e-prescribing, while others have argued that inefficiencies within PDMPs have generated additional work for physicians and failed to provide data in a timely manner.