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Electronic reporting system helps eliminate illegal use of controlled substances

Nurse Leader Weekly, May 9, 2003

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The Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting (KASPER), a statewide system for reporting the dispensing of Schedule II-V drugs, makes access to patients' controlled substance history available to health care providers.

Since the Kentucky Cabinet for Health Services (CHS) began KASPER in 1999, the system has helped stop patients' illegal use of controlled substances in the state, experts say. Such a system also helps facilities comply with the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations' draft medication standards TX.3.17 and TX.3.19, which require health care organizations to keep an inventory of control procedures, and to document and reconcile Schedule II controlled substances, respectively.

Under Kentucky law, all pharmacies and other dispensers of Schedule II, III, IV, and V drugs must inform the CHS through KASPER of all controlled substances they distribute, says Danna Droz, who oversees KASPER as manager of the drug enforcement branch in the state public health department. Although the law doesn't apply to inpatient pharmacies, hospitals with outpatient pharmacies must comply.

How it works

Twice a month, the pharmacy staff compiles a report, which it then submits to the cabinet's contractor. The contractor edits and checks reports before sending them to the cabinet, where the staff loads information into a high-security database. All reports must include the following:

• Patient names
• Addresses, including ZIP codes
• Social Security numbers
• Dates of birth
• The prescribed drugs, identified by their national drug code number
• Dates the prescriptions were filled
• Quantity of the medication
• Days' supply
• Prescribers
• Dispensers

Practitioners and law enforcement officials then have ready access to information on patients' controlled substance histories. They need only fax or mail a form to the drug enforcement branch office to request the information. KASPER then provides the following information on any controlled substances given to a patient:

• The dates
• Amount of medication
• The locations of the dispensing pharmacies
• The prescribing physicians

In 2000, practitioners and law enforcement officials made 36,174 requests for information from KASPER. In 2001, that number jumped to 71,848. Before KASPER, drug control investigators spent an average of 156 days to complete an investigation of an alleged "doctor shopper." With KASPER, the average time dropped to 16 days. Given these figures, it's no surprise the U.S. General Accounting Office highlights KASPER as a technology success story.

Adapted from: Hospital Pharmacy Regulation Report, www.hcmarketplace.com/Prod.cfm?id=1505&=ENMW.

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