Letters to the Editor

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Letters of the Day: Prescription for success

Posted: 09/1/2011 9:17 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Manitoba has instituted the Drug Program Information Network.

As a third-year pharmacy student at the University of Manitoba, I disagree with the Aug. 20 story Prescription drugs off the radar. Although I have not worked in a community pharmacy in Manitoba myself, my classmates and I were taught about Manitoba’s Drug Program Information Network (DPIN, not DIN) system in the jurisprudence section of pharmacy skills lab in our second year.

From my understanding, the system contains the medication profile for each Manitoban, is accessible from all community pharmacies in Manitoba and is actively being used every minute of every day, contrary to your sources for your article. When a patient takes a prescription for a narcotic or any other prescription drug to a community pharmacy, the prescription, with very few exceptions, is entered into the DPIN system.

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If the same or similar drug has been filled at the same or a different pharmacy in Manitoba before its refill date, DPIN immediately notifies the pharmacy electronically. The pharmacist can then make the decision whether or not to fill the prescription.

Although the message from DPIN does not say at which pharmacy the prescription was filled, the pharmacist can call the DPIN office to have the other pharmacy contact them to discuss the patient further.

Using this system, community pharmacists are the health care professionals who are monitoring prescription drug use and providing this critical clinical information to physicians. These and other interventions by the pharmacists prevent misuse and abuse, but largely go unrecorded and unreported.

I also believe that Manitoba should be acknowledged for implementing the first DPIN-type program in Canada, as Ontario does not have this type of monitoring system.

JUSTINE MANULAK

Winnipeg

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