Drug database Must Be Funded

Attached a link to an article titled " Drug Database Must Be Funded" published in the Sun Sentinel and my response in the form of a letter to the editor. I encourage you to act now by writing to your legislator and the Governors office supporting sustainable PDMP funding. Yours Bernd Letter to the Editor RE: Drug Database must be funded, Sun Sentinel, October 3rd 2012 I am a family physician and addiction specialist and use the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) as an essential tool in my daily medical practice. Having access to the history of prescribed controlled substances increases transparency and accountability and helps me to protect patients from inadvertent drug interactions which can often lead to accidental overdose and death. Yes, the program is imperfect and requires improvement. Real time drug dispensing reporting is still lacking and pharmacies have up to 7 days to enter dispensing data into the database. Physicians are not mandated to use the program when prescribing controlled substances and less than 900 physicians in Dade and Broward county are registered user. Therefore, we should double our efforts to increase PDMP access and use which requires funding and legislative support. Unfortunately, government officials are more interested in scoring political correctness points than providing the resources to protect public health by preventing accidental overdose deaths. There is no time for complacency. We need to act now to protect the PDMP. Bernd Wollschlaeger,MD,FAAFP,FASAM Former member of the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Implementation and Oversight Taskforce