“The recent deaths of Anna Nicole Smith and Michael Jackson have made clear to the whole world just how dangerous prescription drug abuse can be,” said California Attorney General Edmund Brown Jr., as he unveiled the state’s new CURES internet database which provides physicians, pharmacists and law enforcement officers instant access to any patient’s prescription drug use history. Although not necessarily targeted for patients like the above named celebrities, the main use of the database is in an effort to curb prescription drug abuse, especially among patients who seek out and receive multiple prescriptions from different doctors. With 7,500 pharmacies and 158,000 prescribers reporting prescription information annually, CURES is the largest online prescription-drug monitoring database in the United States. Its goal is to reduce drug trafficking and abuse of dangerous prescription medications, lower the number of emergency room visits due to prescription-drug overdose and misuse, and reduce the costs to healthcare providers related to prescription-drug abuse. [via ABC KERO 23]
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Dr. Steven Chang, the author of DailyDose, is a staff physician with Kosmix RightHealth. Dr. Chang practices Family Medicine at the University of California Davis Medical Center, where his medical interests include both pediatric and geriatric care, public health, gay and lesbian health, and sleep medicine. Dr. Chang trained at the Stanford University affiliated O'Connor Hospital, and was a research fellow at the National Institute of Health. He holds an M.D. from McGill University and a BA in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University.