Introduction to Narcotics Monitoring System

The Narcotics Monitoring System (NMS) has been established by the Ontario government for the collection, monitoring, and disclosure of information pertaining to narcotics and controlled substances; regardless of the party paying for the prescription.

The Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care defines the NMS as follows:

• The NMS will collect dispensing data from pharmacies in relation to all monitored drugs regardless of how the prescription is reimbursed (e.g. publicly funded drug programs, private insurance, and cash payments).
• The NMS will serve as a central data repository to enable retrospective reviews of prescribing and dispensing activities within the community health care sector. In addition, the NMS will have real-time Drug Utilization Review (DUR) capabilities. When a dispensing record is submitted by a pharmacy to the NMS, the system will conduct DUR checks. If potential drug utilization issues, such as double-doctoring and poly-pharmacy visits, are detected, the NMS will issue an alert to the pharmacy in real-time (i.e. at the time that the prescription is being dispensed).

NMS functionality has been incorporated into PharmaClik Rx in order to ensure that any prescriptions, filled for narcotics or controlled substances, are submitted to the government’s database. The intent of the NMS is to provide real time up-to-date information to the use/misuse of narcotics and controlled substances to all healthcare providers.

The functionality provided will indicate the following types of DUR messages:

• Double-doctoring
• Poly-pharmacy
• Duplicate drug
• Refill too soon
• Refill too late