Builiding Methods for a Proactive Prescription Drug Surveillance System

Abstract

ObjectiveThis study aims to show the application of longitudinal statistical and epidemiological methods for building a proactive prescription drug surveillance system for public health. IntroductionPrescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) are operating in 49 states and several U.S. territories. Current methods for surveillance of prescription drug related behaviors, include the mean daily dosage of morphine milligram equivalent (MME) per patient, annual percentage of days with overlapping prescriptions per patient, and annual multiple provider episodes for multiple controlled substance prescription drugs per patient that are described elsewhere.1,2 This work builds on these efforts by extending longitudinal methods to prescription drug behavior surveillance in order to predict risks associated with prescription drug use.