NCJ Number
251159
Date Published
September 2017
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This Technical Assistance Guide (TAG) instructs grantees under the Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program in fulfilling the performance requirement of calculating daily morphine milligram equivalents (MMEs) for opioid painkillers for 3-month and 6-month reporting periods, so as to better identify and quantify individuals at-risk for the misuse of such drugs.
Abstract
Evidence suggests that a patient who receives more than 100mg MMEs is nine times more likely to overdose, with 12 percent of those resulting in death. Identifying at-risk patients is a first step in improving patient safety and increasing prescriber awareness. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has developed and made available an opioid guideline app, which is designed to assist providers in applying the recommendations of CDC's Guidelines for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain into clinical practice. This TAG contains relevant definitions, an MME conversion formula, an Excel data file for oral MMEs, a statistical analysis system (SAS) merging program, and a SAS data file for oral MMEs.