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SALT LAKE CITY — On Wednesday, state lawmakers looked at a beefed-up version of the state's drug database that aims to help prevent those prescribed opioids from becoming addicted.
Starting Thursday, the Utah Controlled Substance Database will be faster and up to national standards.
Wednesday, the state legislature’s Health and Human Services Interim Committee checked out the changes.
The database program was put into effect in 1995 and records controlled substances that are prescribed so health care professionals can look up a patient's prescription history.
The software has color and symbol alerts that assess all of the patient's current prescriptions and their risk of an overdose.
Many addicts go from doctor to doctor seeking more and more drugs, while others don't just realize the risk of what they're taking.
“You can’t always tell looking at a patient if they’re a user or not,” said Rep. Brad Daw, R-Orem.
Rep. Raymond Ward, R-Bountiful, who is a physician, said the system is also helpful because the data can be shown to patients as proof when doctors refuse them prescriptions.
“It highlights risky prescriptions,” he said. “So that’s what we really want to do is ferret out for the most dangerous ones, the most risky ones — make it easy for the prescribers to understand that and hopefully change their habits.”
The database is a collaboration between several state agencies. They hope to teach more of those who write prescriptions how to use it.
Policymakers say it’s most important to improve the system as a first step, and that they may consider making the database a requirement for health care providers in the future.
