A special MMS task force is developing a plan for improving communication and pain management coordination among physicians, and advocating for improvements in the state’s prescription monitoring program.
Those efforts will accompany a major statewide initiative, announced by Mass. Gov. Charlie Baker on Thursday to combat abuse of heroin and prescription drugs. Baker called opioid abuse in Massachusetts a “public health emergency” and advocated for a statewide strategy for dealing with addiction as well as the release of county-by-county data on opiate prescriptions.
MMS President Richard Pieters said that improved peer-to-peer communication about a patient’s pain management is vital. "As the ones who write the prescriptions and the ones who take the medicines, we can have an important impact in reducing the abuse,” he said.
"We applaud the state’s data analysis work, as we have long advocated for improvements to the state’s prescription monitoring program – including the inclusion of real-time data – to inhibit ‘doctor shopping.’”
"Further, we need to recognize that more than three out of four people who abuse prescription drugs use drugs prescribed to someone else,” said Dr. Pieters. “Proper storage and disposal of prescription medications by those who are prescribed the drugs is a critical step to curbing this abuse."
Read the full MMS press release here.
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