Pharmacists Prompted by System-Generated Alerts Dispense More Naloxone Prescriptions

Pharmacists dispensed dozens more naloxone prescriptions to high-risk patients after alerts were added to the pharmacy management system flagging long-acting opioid medication prescriptions, according to a study published online ahead of print in the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association.

“Opioid overdose deaths accounted for approximately 69.5% of the total drug overdoses in the United States in 2018. In the same year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that around 9 million opportunities to dispense naloxone to high-risk patients were missed,” wrote a research team from Cincinnati, Ohio. “Community pharmacists are equipped to help all patients obtain naloxone to prevent opioid-related overdoses.”

The study investigated the impact of system-generated mandatory alerts for all patients dispensed long-acting opioid medication. Alerts prompted pharmacists at five sites of a large community pharmacy chain in June and July 2020 to assess the need for naloxone and dispense as appropriate under a physician-approved protocol. Researchers compared the change in the number of naloxone prescriptions initiated by pharmacists during the 2-month intervention period with the same 2-month period a year earlier.

During June-July 2020, pharmacists at the five sites initiated and dispensed 34 additional naloxone prescriptions, under the physician-approved protocol, compared with June-July 2019, the study found.

“The results illustrated that system-generated mandatory alerts prompting pharmacist intervention can effectively increase pharmacist utilization of a physician-approved protocol,” researchers advised, “resulting in increased naloxone prescriptions dispensed to high-risk patients.”

Reference:
Coffman R, Johnson A, Frede S, Pleiman M, Johnson K. The evaluation of mandatory alerts on long-acting opioid prescriptions and the use of a community pharmacy naloxone protocol [published online ahead of print December 2, 2021]. J Am Pharm Assoc. doi:10.1016/j.japh.2021.11.032