Appriss partners with The MetroHealth System to fight drug abuse

Appriss Inc., a leading technology provider for risk assessment and analytics in public safety and healthcare, announced its partnership with The MetroHealth System in Ohio to fight drug abuse, diversion and addiction where it's needed most – at the prescribing level.

"We are integrating the NARxCHECK solution into our electronic medical records to improve our patients' safety as well as comply with Ohio's mandatory use requirement to access a patient's prescription history from the State Prescription Monitoring Program database, OARSS, before prescribing schedule IV drugs," said Jonathan Siff, MD, associate chief medical informatics officer of The MetroHealth System (http://www.metrohealth.org). "NARxCHECK has quickly become an important clinical tool for our physicians fostering an increased level of physician prescribing confidence," he stated.

A real-time report created by the analytics solution, NARxCHECK (http://www.appriss.com/narxcheck.html), provides three key components for prescribers and dispensers: a score, an interactive graph, and the detailed information about each prescription. There is an algorithm that assesses and computes the history from a prescriptions-dispensed database, including statewide PDMP programs, to highlight when there might be an issue with addiction, abuse or diversion for narcotics, sedatives and stimulants.

By accurately assessing the number of providers, dispensing pharmacies, drug equivalents, overlapping prescriptions in history and the current number of active prescriptions, physicians can have peace-of-mind-prescribing practices allowing practitioners to concentrate prescription review history efforts on those who may be abusing or diverting the drugs to the streets.

NARxCHECK will be part of the Office of National Coordinator's (ONC) Interoperability Showcase at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society annual conference scheduled for April 13 – 16^th in Chicago.

SOURCE Appriss