Wednesday, March 13, 2013

DOJ Seeks Funding Applications

The Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs within the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) is funding the Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) to help prevent and detect the abuse of pharmaceutical controlled substances in this country.

Forty three states now have operational PDMPs and six states and Guam have enacted legislation to establish a PDMP but these PDMPs are not yet fully operational. Since the grant program started with the FY 2002 appropriations, grants have been awarded to 49 states and 1 U.S. territory to support efforts to plan, implement, or enhance a PDMP.

The Harold Rogers PDMP enables states to use their discretion to plan, implement, or enhance a PDMP. In FY 2013, the program is expanding further to provide funding to states and localities to pilot innovative ways to use PDMPs and to come up with other ideas on prevention, treatment, and enforcement.

State governments and country governments located in states with existing and operational prescription drug monitoring programs plus recognized tribal governments can also apply for grant funding within three categories.

Category 1—(Implementation and Enhancement Grants) includes up to $400,000 to use to implement and/or enhance PDMP systems. Funds may be used to establish and build a data collection and analysis system, develop an infrastructure to support programs, facilitate the exchange of information, establish collaborations, develop education/training programs, facilitate electronic information sharing among states, and provide unsolicited reports of controlled substance prescribing to authorized individuals.

Category 2—(Tribal PDMP Data Sharing Grants ) includes up to $150,000 for tribal governments seeking to report and request data from individual states PDMPs for the purpose of equipping providers with prescription drug monitoring history. Funds may be used to help tribal governments develop and implement the necessary legal, policy, and technical infrastructure needed to support the reporting of patient-level controlled substance prescription dispensing data transmission from tribal and urban healthcare facilities.

Category 3—(Data-Driven Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Reducing Rx Abuse Grants) includes up to $400,000 to pilot an innovative approach to combat and reduce prescription drug abuse. Funds may be used to form multi-disciplinary action groups consisting of county, state, and federal criminal justice professionals in addition to state and local health authorities as well as treatment providers.

The action groups will collect data from various sources such as medical examiners, emergency rooms, crime data and other sources to examine PDMP data as well as provide additional information to help pinpoint specific locations within the county that are at-risk for prescription drug abuse and drug overdose deaths.

Grant activities should focus on data sharing arrangements, data collection, and analysis. Grantees will determine best practices for sharing data, intelligence gathering, targeted regulatory and enforcement activities, and prioritizing of treatment and prevention efforts for at-risk individuals and communities.

Go to www.bja.gov/Funding/13PDMPsol.pdf or www.grants.gov for more information.