To put an end to overdose deaths, Victoria, Australia will allot $30 million to crackdown prescription shopping, the state government has announced.
The alarming number of deaths due to prescription drug overdoses necessitates a real-time monitoring system that physicians, hospitals and pharmacies can use to help identify patients who go prescription shopping. The monitoring system would give 1,900 general physicians, 1,300 pharmaceuticals and 200 hospitals access important patient data prior to prescribing and dispensing medicines that are prone to abuse.
From 2009 to 2015, Victoria recorded (PDF) 376 overdose deaths every year, with about 80 percent due to prescription drugs. In 2015 alone, as much as 330 Victorians died from drug overdoses.
The monitoring system would include Schedule 8 drugs such as oxycodone and morphine.
"Real-time prescription monitoring will help put a system in place that can help us see where people are doctor shopping, or pharmacy shopping, and clearly developing addictive behaviors towards these sorts of medicines," said Health Minister Jill Hennessy.
Hennessy said that, in recent years, abuse of prescription drugs continues to increase because it is overlooked. She added that deaths due to overdose of prescription drugs outnumber deaths due to road accidents - something that the government should worry about.
With such a system in place, it would be easier to alert other physicians and pharmacies. Patients who abuse prescription drugs can be denied scripts and instead given support to deal with their addiction.
Challenges Ahead
Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation President Alex Wodak supports the project, but expressed concerns that with such a system in place, many of prescription drug dependents would turn to illicit drugs.
"That's my view of what's likely to happen, and while I support it, I think it's going to achieve less than people hoped," said Wodak.
Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association head Sam Biondo said that the system, while long overdue, is still a welcome move. He added that the soaring number of deaths due to prescription drug overdose highlights the need for such an initiative.
Biondo added that for this system to effectively work, additional funding should also be allotted to the drug treatment sector, as it would receive an influx of referrals.
In the U.S., it was recently revealed in a Leapfrog survey that a hospital software, also known as the computerized physician order entry (CPOE), designed to control prescription drug abuse fail to raise appropriate red flags because the majority of hospitals does not implement it.
This should serve as a lesson for the Victorian government - having a system in place is one thing, but accurately implementing it is another. Each and every health department must realize the need to address the problem on prescription drugs.
