Pubdate: Fri, 07 Apr 2006
Source: Des Moines Register (IA)
Copyright: 2006 The Des Moines Register.
Contact:  http://desmoinesregister.com/index.html
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/123
Author: Tony Leys

HOUSE APPROVES PRESCRIPTION DATABASE

System Would Help Spot Cases Of 'Doctor-Shopping'

Iowans' prescription orders would be tracked on a statewide computer 
system under a plan approved Thursday in the Iowa House.

The proposal, which passed the Senate last week, was approved on a 
99-0 vote in the House. Its goal is to help doctors and pharmacists 
spot patients who are trying to dupe them into approving 
prescriptions for narcotics or other addictive drugs.

The plan nearly foundered in a Senate committee last month amid 
concerns about patient privacy. But it was resuscitated after 
lawmakers limited access to the database by police and state 
regulators. Under the new plan, only doctors and pharmacists could 
have regular access to the information.

Rodell Mollineau, a spokesman for Gov. Tom Vilsack, said the governor 
probably would sign the bill. Mollineau expressed regrets that the 
Legislature dropped plans to include pseudoephedrine in the list of 
drugs to be tracked by the system. Pseudoephedrine, an ingredient in 
many over-the-counter cold medicines, is commonly used to make methamphetamine.

Including it in the new database "would have been a good opportunity 
to build on the meth laws passed last year," Mollineau said.

The House passed a significantly stronger version of the bill in 
2005. Under that plan, the project would have included a computer 
program to automatically search for patients who were buying multiple 
orders of the same drugs. Supporters said the program would have 
helped spot patients who were "doctor-shopping."

But opponents, led by physician groups, helped ground that proposal 
in the Senate. They said that it would have been an invasion of 
privacy, and that it could have made doctors wary of prescribing pain 
medicine for people who needed it.

The Iowa Board of Pharmacy Examiners, which proposed the system, has 
obtained $642,963 in federal grants to set it up.

The system would automatically collect information from pharmacies 
throughout the state. Terry Witkowski, an administrator for the 
board, said regulators hope to have it running by the end of the year.

{Sidebar} Lawmakers cite Gleason death

MARCH 25 SUICIDE: Supporters of a proposed prescription-drug tracking 
system have pointed to the March 25 suicide of Dr. Stephen Gleason, a 
prominent Des Moines physician who admitted that he manipulated 
numerous doctors and pharmacists into filling prescriptions to feed 
his relapse into narcotics addiction.

INTERVIEW: In an interview six weeks before his death, Gleason said 
the original drug-tracking proposal probably would have caught him 
before his life collapsed. Under that plan, a computer program would 
have combed through records, flagging patients who filled multiple 
orders for the same medications. "That would have stopped me cold," he said.

EXPRESSED DOUBTS: Gleason, Gov. Tom Vilsack's former chief of staff, 
said he hadn't closely followed the debate over the proposal, but he 
expressed doubts that a system without the automatic-search function 
would have helped in his case. He said his relapse lasted just seven 
weeks, during which he went from sobriety to a desperate state of 
heavy drug use and depression.

SKEPTICISM: He expressed skepticism that a passive system, in which 
doctors and pharmacists would have to look up records, would have 
caught up with him in time.

Gleason gave the interview in a Des Moines addiction-treatment 
center, where police took him after they were called by his worried family.
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