Brian Litten Outlines How Medication Therapy Management Can Address Opioid Misuse

Through Medication Therapy Management, a pharmacist will be able to recognize indications of potential opioid abuse, explained Brian Litten, JD, chief strategic officer, Tabula Rasa HealthCare.

Transcript

How can Medication Therapy Management be used to address opioid misuse?

In the course of an MTM [Medication Therapy Management] consultation or a comprehensive medication review, a pharmacist will review all of the medications the patient is taking, and that will also include, in better MTM programs, over-the-counter medications and vitamin supplements. In the course of looking at all of the medications, which will include opioids, a pharmacist will be able to see trends, with respect to the opioids, such as multiple refills, different prescribers writing prescriptions for opioids, and filling prescriptions across state lines. These are all indications of potential abuse.

Tabula Rasa HealthCare has announced their Optimized Opioid Solution. How will this solution identify and prevent opioid misuse?

TRHC looks at medications in the MTM context very differently than other MTM companies. Rather than looking at single drug to drug interactions, Tabula Rasa looks at accumulative, simultaneous multi-drug interactions. So, we’re looking at the entire cocktail of medications. What this means with respect to opioids is that a patient who’s taking opioids and other medications, there may be interactions between those other medications and the opioid that can lead to serious problems.

The opioid could provide more analgesic impact to the body than the prescriber would expect, or it might provide less, which also causes serious problems. So, by identifying the impact of the other medications that a patient is taking along with the opioid, we can get a head start on risk associated with unintentional misuse of opioids that lead to potential abuse.