A recent upgrade has injected new life into Massachusetts’ prescription monitoring efforts, resulting in better coordination of care because of the database and reduced orders for opioids.
Massachusetts has the oldest Prescription Drug Monitoring Program in the United States and—under an October 2016 state law—all prescribers must query the electronic database before writing any new opioid prescriptions.
The Massachusetts Prescription Awareness Tool (MassPAT) was showing its age around the time last year’s law required Bay State doctors to check the database, according to Marylou Sudders, State Secretary of Health and Human Services.
