Annals of emergency medicine
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Prescription drug monitoring programs are generally underused in emergency departments (ED) and nationwide enrollment is low among emergency physicians. We aimed to develop consensus recommendations for prescription drug monitoring program policy and design to optimize their functionality and use in the ED. We assembled a technical expert panel with key stakeholders in emergency medicine, public health, and public policy. ⋯ The process yielded policy recommendations and design features, with majority agreement. The panel made 18 policy recommendations within these main themes: enrollment should be mandatory, with an automatic process to mitigate the workload; registration should be open to all prescribers; delegates should have access to prescription drug monitoring program to alleviate work flow burdens; prescription drug monitoring program data should be pushed into hospital electronic health records; prescription drug monitoring program review should be mandatory for patients receiving opioid prescriptions and based on objective criteria; the prescription drug monitoring program content should be standardized and updated in a timely manner; and states should encourage interstate data sharing. An expert panel identified 18 recommendations that can be used by states and policymakers to improve prescription drug monitoring program design to increase use in the ED setting.
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The 2010 provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) extended eligibility for health insurance for young adults aged 19 to 25 years. It is unclear, however, how expanded coverage changes health care behavior and promotes efficient use of emergency department (ED) services. Our objective was to use population-level emergency department data to characterize any changes in diagnoses seen in ED among young adults since the implementation of the ACA dependent coverage expansion. ⋯ Our results indicate that increased coverage has kept young adults out of the ED for specific conditions that can be cared for through access to other channels. As EDs face capacity challenges, these results are encouraging and offer insight into what could be expected under further insurance expansions from health care reform.