By PHIL CAUTHON
KHI News Service
TOPEKA — The number of patients flagged by K-TRACS, the state’s computerized prescription drug monitoring system, increased more than sixfold after officials began using new software last year, program overseers were told Friday.
In the last half of 2013, warnings were triggered by 584 patients when they tried to fill prescriptions too frequently or otherwise signaled potential for abuse of the drugs. Only 91 patients were flagged in the first half of 2013, when the system was using older, more costly software.
Once a transaction is flagged, program officials alert doctors and pharmacists with a letter. Patients are flagged if their prescriptions exceed a certain number or type in a three-month period. The quarterly thresholds are confidential to make it harder for potential abusers to dodge the system.
Licensed Kansas pharmacies are required by state law to use the K-TRACS system, which includes a statewide database of prescriptions with files specific to each patient. Many hospitals also use it but voluntarily.
K-TRACS Executive Director Marty Singleton told members of the Prescription Monitoring Program Advisory Committee today that it was unclear what led to the spike in flagged patients.
“I really haven’t been able to put my finger on it,” Singleton said. “Personally, for me, when analyzing data — particularly with a new software vendor — I would like to have more than two quarters of data to look for trends.”
Clay Rogers — a data analyst with Appriss, the new software vendor — said it was possible his company’s software did a better job than the old system of identifying variations in personal information supplied by patients. Drug abusing patients often “doc shop” and use variations on their name spelling, address, or birthday in an attempt to evade detection.
In other news from the committee’s quarterly meeting, Singleton said LACIE — one of the two networks that comprise the statewide health information exchange — plans to begin a pilot connection with K-TRACS starting next month. After a test period, the K-TRACS connection would be rolled out to all providers connected to LACIE — about 4,000 providers in the Kansas City metro area, according to LACIE officials.
Access to K-TRACS via the network would mean that connected doctors and pharmacists would not have to go to a separate K-TRACS website to enter and check prescribing data but could find that information via the LACIE network, which is used for communicating patient information.
Officials for the other patient information exchange network — KHIN, which is the primary network for Kansas providers outside the KC area — have said its software vendor currently cannot complete a connection to K-TRACS.