Michigan Tapped by National Governor's Association to Focus on

Reducing Prescription Drug Abuse; LARA, MDCH to partner on

improving state's pain management
Contact: Melanie Brown 517-373-9280
Agency: Licensing and Regulatory Affairs

September 24, 2014 - As Michigan is named one of six states to develop an action plan to combat
the abuse of prescription drugs nationally, directors of the Michigan Departments of Licensing and
Regulatory Affairs (LARA) and Community Health (MDCH) today announced their partnership
toward effective pain management for Michigan citizens.

LARA Acting Director Mike Zimmer and MDCH Director Nick Lyon today were presented with 2014
recommendations outlined in The State of Pain in Michigan report prepared by Gov. Rick Snyders
Advisory Committee on Pain and Symptom Management (ACPSM).

I look forward to our joint effort in working with healthcare providers and pharmacists to improve the
quality of life of our citizens through effective pain management, said Zimmer. I commend the
ACPSM for their tremendous effort in developing a core curriculum on pain for Michigans medical
schools and other health professional schools.

The ACPSMs report indicates that Michigan continues to be the top among states enacting policies
promoting delivery of effective pain management and continues to receive an A grade in the quality
of its legislation and regulatory policies that positively influence patient pain care.

A key finding of the report was that 36 percent of drug overdose decedents (unintentional or
undetermined intent) had at least one prescription filled within a year prior to death and had five or
more prescribers per year. A primary goal of the ACPSM was to outline ways of reducing the
incidence of overdose for individuals who had five or more prescribers per year.

To better address this and other findings, and relieve the daily chronic pain that up to 3 million
Michigan citizens endure every day, the ACPSM recommends implementation of several best
practices through the joint effort of LARA and MDCH, including:

Advancement of the use of the Michigan Automated Prescription System (MAPS) among
healthcare providers and pharmacists; establish emergency room connection with MAPS;
develop thresholds for prescribing and dispensing of pain medication; and develop triggers
for further evaluation of the prescriber when thresholds are exceeded.
Adoption of the ACPSM Model Core Curriculum on Pain Management for Michigan medical
schools and promotion of its use in schools of Pharmacy, Nursing, Dental and Allied Health
to ensure comprehensive, consistent pain education in all of Michigans medical schools as
an approach to foster a more safe and effective treatment of pain.
Advocacy of physician best prescribing practices for safe and effective treatment of Michigan
residents' pain balancing the need to relieve symptoms, improve function and assure safety.
The thoughtful recommendations presented by ACPSM today will take Michigan even further in our
effort to reduce prescription drug abuse and improve effective pain management in our
communities, said Lyon. These recommendations are a nice compliment to the National Governors
Associations Policy Academy that Michigan was recently selected to participate in.

LARAs Pain Management and Palliative Care Program supports the use of MAPS at
www.michigan.gov/mimapsinfo, which is the prescription monitoring program for the State of
Michigan. MAPS has proven to be effective for ensuring the safety of patients using prescription pain
medication.

The ACPSM, a multidisciplinary committee of health professionals, is charged with studying the state
of pain in Michigan and making recommendations to LARA and MDCH with the goal of providing
good pain management for Michigan citizens in balance with the goal of reducing the misuse of
prescription medications. The ACPSM Model Pain Curriculum, which covers a variety of treatment
methods, is posted on LARAs pain management website at www.michigan.gov/pm. Gov. Snyder
has declared September as Pain Awareness Month, as pain affects more Michigan citizens and
Americans than diabetes, heart disease and cancer combined.

Michigan, along with Minnesota, North Carolina and Wisconsin, will participate in the second round
of the National Governors Associations (NGA) Prescription Drug Abuse Project. The selected states
will join Nevada and Vermont in developing comprehensive, evidence-based action plans to combat
the abuse of prescription drugs, the fastest-growing drug problem in the United States.


For more information about LARA, please visit www.michigan.gov/lara
For more information about MDCH, visit www.michigan.gov/mdch
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