Kentucky Team Dedicated to Substance Use Disorder Research to Speak at Rx Summit
A group of individuals from the University of Kentucky (UK) is part of a new team dedicated to substance use disorder research at the university. These researchers combined their years of expertise to ensure UK takes a holistic approach when addressing substance use disorder in the Commonwealth.
Recently, select members of this team have been invited to present at the National Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit in Atlanta, GA and will be presenting their findings later this month.
Trish Freeman, Jeff Talbert, and Chris Delcher, faculty at the UK College of Pharmacy, along with Svetla Slavova from the UK College of Public Health, will discuss specific changes to Kentucky law, potential impacts to patient care, and the expanded use of prescription data for public health surveillance.
In 2017, Kentucky became the first state to schedule gabapentin as a controlled substance. This was a result of concerns among Kentucky pharmacists for gabapentin misuse and the high percentage of Kentucky drug overdose decedents who tested positive for gabapentin. Talbert will present data on gabapentin prescribing variations among demographic groups and geographical regions in the state.
Freeman will present the results of a federally-funded study that evaluates prescriber and pharmacists’ perceptions of a 2017 state law that required drug-conviction data be made available when a healthcare provider searches for a patient's prescription history. As a result, Kentucky became the first state to make criminal conviction data available during an episode of clinical care. The unintended consequences of this change are unknown.
Delcher will discuss the potential unintended consequences for inappropriately identifying cancer patients as "doctor shoppers" using prescription data, while Slavova will examine newly developed measures for "high-risk" opioid analgesic prescribing that enhanced the state’s analytical capability to identify areas and populations at high-risk for overdose and to guide policy and program evaluation.
The National Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit will take place from April 22-25, 2019. Additional registration information can be found on their website.
Data Tools and Techniques to Detect Fraud and Abuse
Dr. Chris Delcher
Wednesday, April 24
2:00 PM – 3:15 PM
Making the Most of PDMPs: Lessons from Kentucky's PDMP Enhancements
Dr. Trish Freeman, Dr.Svetla Slavova, Dr. Jeffery Talbert
Wednesday, April 24
3:45 PM – 5:00 PM
We wish to remember and honor those who inhabited this Commonwealth before the arrival of the Europeans. Briefly occupying these lands were the Osage, Wyndott tribe, and Miami peoples. The Adena and Hopewell peoples, who are recognized by the naming of the time period in which they resided here, were here more permanently. Some of their mounds remain in the Lexington area, including at UK’s Adena Park.
In more recent years, the Cherokee occupied southeast Kentucky, the Yuchi southwest Kentucky, the Chickasaw extreme western Kentucky and the Shawnee central Kentucky including what is now the city of Lexington. The Shawnee left when colonization pushed through the Appalachian Mountains. Lower Shawnee Town ceremonial grounds are still visible in Greenup County.
We honor the first inhabitants who were here, respect their culture, and acknowledge the presence of their descendants who are here today in all walks of life including fellow pharmacists and healthcare professionals.