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Harris Teeter, Kroger join fight against prescription drug misuse

Kroger and Harris Teeter pharmacies across North Carolina have joined the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services' fight against prescription drug misuse by using a nationwide prescription database.

Posted Updated

By
Natalie Matthews
, WRAL.com editor
RALEIGH, N.C. — Kroger and Harris Teeter pharmacies across North Carolina have joined the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services’ fight against prescription drug misuse by using a nationwide prescription database.

In January, North Carolina’s Controlled Substances Reporting System joined the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy’s data-sharing network, PMP InterConnect, to help reduce prescription drug misuse.

The network allows doctors and other clinicians to obtain multi-state information about their patients’ opioid prescriptions.

The 45-state prescription monitoring network has records of more than 15 million transactions of prescription data per month.

Kroger and Harris Teeter utilize the network in more than 1,300 stores across 18 states. They are the first pharmacy chains to use the data system while filling prescriptions to reduce the potential to dispense unwarranted controlled substance prescriptions.

Opioid overdoses have been on the rise in North Carolina and across the nation in recent years. DHHS data show more than 12,000 North Carolinians have died from opioid overdoses since 1999.

In 2016, opioid related deaths were up by more than 30 percent from the previous year. Since 1999, North Carolina has seen a 1,000 percent increase in the number of opioid-related deaths.

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