Rationale for the Monitoring Program
The quality of care in Florida hospitals has been a contentious issue for several decades, mostly due to insufficient staffing and the associated issues. However, a new problem has emerged recently as the issue of administering prescribed drugs to patients in the hospital setting became problematic (Bachhuber, Tuazon, Nolan, Kunins, & Paone, 2019). Due to the lack of supervision, instances of mismanagement of prescribed drugs and the failure to deliver them to patients has been observed (Finley et al., 2017). Thus, there has been an obvious need for change in the approach toward administering drugs to patients, hence the reform aimed at developing the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program so that patients could receive proper care in Florida hospitals.
Adoption of the Reform
The reform was adopted on October 6, 2019 by the Congress (Florida Senate, 2019). The preceding negotiations have been going on for a substantial amount of time, causing a rift between the state officials (Florida Senate, 2019). The bill was sponsored by Cary Pigman and Melony Bell (Florida Senate, 2019). Remarkably, the program was proposed as an amendment to the existing regulations for drug monitoring in 2017, when it represented the bare minimum of requirements for the supervision of the process of providing patients with opioids and similar prescription medications in the hospital environment (Florida Senate, 2019). However, as the range of concerns in the Florida healthcare context grew, additional amendments were introduced to the regulation.
Funding Structure of the Healthcare Reform
The program has been funded by the state and received appropriate financial support (Florida Senate, 2019). However, given the range of health issues that have to be addressed in the disadvantaged areas of Florida, additional financial support will be required for the specified regulation. Indeed, given the current poverty rates in Miami, FL, the budget for the management of drug-prescription-related issues may be hampered, hence the necessity to introduce an additional source of financial support. Using outside investors as the support system for the regulation will allow keeping the quality of public healthcare and the management of inpatients’ needs at the proper level.
Impacts pf the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program
It would not be an overstatement to say that the reform affected a range of patients profoundly as their opportunity to receive medications in a timely and appropriate fashion increased. While the reform has not been in action for long enough to collect the amount of data that will be statistically significant, recent reports show that the issues linked to inappropriate drug administration to inpatients has been reduced (Finley et al., 2017). Specifically, the implementation of similar programs in other states has shown a 58% drop in the cases that involved mismanagement of drugs and the failure to provide patients with the medication that they had been prescribed (Bachhuber et al., 2019). Therefore, the change introduced in the current healthcare setting is expected to pave the way to improved healthcare service.
Moreover, the introduction of digital tools into the process of monitoring drug prescription and the fact of its being administered to patients indicates that the issue of drug mismanagement and the cases of medical errors have dropped (Florida Senate, 2019). Overall, the described regulation is believed to lead to positive patient outcomes in the future. The integration of the program is also expected to have a profound impact on the attitudes among nurses toward their workplace responsibilities, specifically, the provision of injections and the relevant services in regard to the needs of inpatients.
References
Bachhuber, M. A., Tuazon, E., Nolan, M. L., Kunins, H. V., & Paone, D. (2019). Impact of a prescription drug monitoring program use mandate on potentially problematic patterns of opioid analgesic prescriptions in New York City. Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, 28(5), 734-739. Web.
Finley, E. P., Garcia, A., Rosen, K., McGeary, D., Pugh, M. J., & Potter, J. S. (2017). Evaluating the impact of prescription drug monitoring program implementation: a scoping review. BMC Health Services Research, 17(1), 420-427. Web.
Florida Senate. (2019). Prescription Drug Monitoring Program. Web.