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The Ohio Pharmacy Board recently announced that Ohio’s mandatory prescription drug tracking system, OARRS, now permits Ohio’s prescribers and pharmacists to review Pennsylvania’s counterpart system.

Linking to Pennsylvania’s Prescription Monitoring Program (PA PDMP) means that Ohio healthcare providers can now access patient information on controlled substances that were filled in Pennsylvania without having to use two separate systems. The Ohio Pharmacy Board hopes the new feature on OARRS will further enhance the ability of providers to prevent the misuse and diversion of controlled substances, including opioid pain medications.

Sharing information with Pennsylvania means OARRS users can now access controlled substance prescription information from prescription monitoring programs in each of Ohio’s border states. In addition, OARRS users can access patient data from Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota and Virginia.

Increased use levels by prescribers also represents a positive trend for state regulators. On June 26, 2017 the Ohio Pharmacy Board recorded OARRS achieving a new patient request record with prescribers and pharmacists requesting more than 365,000 patient reports in a single day.

If you are a health care professional regulated by the Ohio Medical Board or Ohio Pharmacy Board and you have questions regarding your use of the OARRS system, you should consider contacting an attorney at Graff & McGovern, LPA, for a no-cost consultation.  Levi Tkach is available to take your call at 614-228-5800, extension 4.