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Bill To Speed Up Drug Database To Help Curb Overdoses

Arizona has the 12th-highest drug overdose rate in the nation, according to the latest state statistics.

If we narrow the scope to people who misuse drugs, Arizona jumps to sixth in the nation.  A recent report shows a full quarter of prescribers fail to check the statewide database for drug conflicts.

Dr. Mazda Shirazi with Arizona Poison and Drug Information says until only recently, that system was extremely slow. 

“It use to be it took somewhere between 10 to 15 minutes and you had to have somebody else access it so that you could see it for your next patient that’s coming up," Shirazi said. 

House Bill 2493 will allocate half-a-million-dollars to speed up and secure the drug database, which should help hospitals, pharmacists, and doctors check and balance patients to avoid an overdose.

“Especially for primary care physicians it gives them a way to see whether they need to intervene, they need to decrease, they need to change the types of medication, or they need to cut back on them," Shirazi said.

Once updated, practitioners will be legally required to register and use the prescription database to dispense any medications in Arizona.

The bill has bipartisan support and already passed the House.  It and several other drug-abuse bills are before the full Senate this week.

Holliday Moore was a reporter at KJZZ from 2017 to 2020.