Jerry Brown's Rx for drug abuse: the Internet
The state attorney general's plan provides doctors and pharmacists with online access to patients' prescription drug histories.
SAN FRANCISCO -- State Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown unveiled a plan today to provide doctors and pharmacists with almost instant Internet access to patient prescription drug histories, to help prevent so-called doctor shopping and other abuses of pharmaceuticals.
Brown told a Los Angeles news conference that the state's prescription drug monitoring is a "horse and buggy" system that needs significant improvements because it can take healthcare professionals weeks to obtain information on drug use by patients. That delay can allow some patients to get large quantities of drugs from multiple doctors for personal use or sale.
"If California puts this on real-time access," said Brown, "it will give doctors and pharmacies the technology they need to fight prescription drug abuse, which is burdening our healthcare system."
The database, known as the Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System, currently contains 86 million entries for prescription drugs dispensed in California, where many millions prescriptions for narcotics and other controlled substances are issued each year.
Prescription drug abuse is a rising problem, with the federal government reporting that 7 million Americans engaged in nonmedical use of pharmaceuticals in 2006 -- up from 6 million two years earlier.
Under a new drug monitoring system, health professionals will be able to get computer access to drug histories of patients instead of mailing or faxing written requests for the information. Each year more than 60,000 such requests are made.
Brown emphasized that the new system will be a secure online database, which doctors can check before writing prescriptions. A few other states have similar systems.
