The final word: Curbing prescription drug abuse and preserving patient care

Friday, November 01, 2013 12:49 PM

John Hughes, MD
CMS Workers’ Compensation and Personal Injury Committee

As we’ve seen painfully demonstrated on the federal level, achieving synergy in public policy can be challenging. But stakeholders across Colorado have successfully shown how various groups with diverse perspectives can come together to address an epidemic issue: the abuse and misuse of prescription pain medication. Reducing its prevalence while preserving access to care will benefit our patients now and in the future, and our teamwork will serve as a model for the rest of the country.

I currently chair the Colorado Medical Society Workers’ Compensation and Personal Injury Committee (WCPIC), and we were asked by the board earlier this year to review current CMS policy on prescription drug abuse and make strategic recommendations for moving forward. As a result, we created the platform “Public Health and Safety Challenges of Treating Chronic Pain: The Medical Perspective,” which encompasses 31 recommendations and was presented to and passed by the CMS House of Delegates at the 2013 Annual Meeting in September.

The platform focuses on five planks: the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP), licensing boards standardization, physician education, law enforcement, and prescription drug abuse as a public health issue.

Two days later, Gov. John Hickenlooper released his “Colorado Plan to Reduce Prescription Drug Abuse,” a coordinated, statewide strategy developed through his yearlong leadership as chair of the National Governors Association policy academy. A crucial recommendation in the plan was to create the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention, which launched the same day.

Led by the University of Colorado School of Pharmacy, the consortium serves as the operational lead for the Colorado Plan to Reduce Prescription Drug Abuse. It brings together the governor’s policy office, a variety of state agencies, and representatives from the medical and education communities including many leaders from the Colorado Medical Society. The group will help facilitate and implement workgroup recommendations in provider and prescriber education, the PDMP, disposal, public awareness, and data and analysis.

I serve on the provider and prescriber education workgroup and we have two tasks: to change state board policies and/or rules for all prescribers licensed by the Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) to include pain management guidelines, and to enlist and support DORA to provide education about the existence and utilization of the PDMP as part of the licensing processes for prescribers and pharmacists.

Tasks of the other workgroups include improving the usability and appropriate accessibility of the PDMP, expanding take-back programs in law enforcement agencies and pharmacies, educating the public through a widespread marketing campaign, and carefully tracking trends in prescription drug abuse to educate the public and other stakeholders.

It is evident that all of the tasks outlined in the governor’s strategic plan complement WCPIC’s recommendations and will advance our common goals to protect our patients and ensure proper use of prescription pain medications. Though the strategic plan only outlines actions over the next year, our collective work builds a strong foundation for continued collaboration on this and other public health issues.

Together I’m confident that we will achieve the governor’s goal of preventing 92,000 Coloradans from engaging in non-medical use of prescription pain medications by 2016 and we will continue the momentum to make even larger strides.