Funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) Center of Excellence was founded in 2010 at the Schneider Institutes for Health Policy, Brandeis University. The Center partners with the Alliance of States with Prescription Monitoring Programs and the PMP Training and Technical Assistance Center to combat the prescription drug abuse epidemic. The Center collaborates with a wide variety of PMP stakeholders, including federal and state governments and agencies, universities, health departments, and medical and pharmacy boards. It is advised by an Expert Panel of nationally recognized professionals in addiction treatment, pain medicine, public health, and epidemiology. The expertise, experience and commitment of the Center’s staff and advisors make it a unique resource in the fight against prescription drug abuse.

Mission and Scope of Work

The PMP Center of Excellence seeks to end the prescription drug abuse epidemic in the United States without compromising accepted standards of pain management or the legitimate prescribing of controlled substances. In collaboration with the Alliance of States with Prescription Monitoring Programs, the Center provides academically sound and practice-relevant information, evaluation, and expertise to PMPs and their stakeholders.

Our work includes:

• Evaluation and optimization: advance the methodology for assessing PMP effectiveness; undertake and encourage program evaluation to identify, improve and extend the applications of PMPs.
• Identifying best practices: provide survey data, statistical analysis and evaluation to develop a compendium of PMP best practices.
• Performance measure analysis: work with federal stakeholders and PMPs to compile and analyze PMP performance measures while improving the quality and consistency of performance measure data and reports.
• Encouraging innovative uses of PMP data: identify and encourage new applications of PMP data in areas such as medical practice, drug abuse treatment and prevention, and criminal justice.
• Information analysis and dissemination: assist state PMPs by providing a clearinghouse of information, evaluation results and tools, statistics, epidemiological studies, and other materials relevant to PMP administrators, state and federal policy makers, and analysts.
• Analytical support: provide support to states and federal agencies in the use of clearinghouse documents and Center of Excellence materials, data, and tools.