BruckEdwards staff selected to support IJIS project focused on Linking, De-Identifying, Anonymizing, and Re-Linking of PMP Records

BruckEdwards was recently selected by the IJIS Institute to conduct research and develop a strategy for combining prescription monitoring patient histories from multiple states —without increasing the risk to private, protected health information. The project team will identify and evaluate the relative merits of alternatives for uniformly anonymizing multi-state data sets and reliably linking records arising from the same patient in composite surveillance datasets. State Prescription Monitoring Programs (PMP) collect, manage, analyze, and allow access to prescription data under the auspices of a state government agency. A primary purpose of these systems is to assist in the reduction of abuse and diversion of these potentially dangerous drugs. The primary end-users of patient data tend to be prescribers, though in many states the systems can also be accessed by authorized dispensers and government officials.