Healthcare providers beliefs about the meanings and impacts of prescription drug monitoring program alerts

Background Addiction and overdose death associated with high-risk prescription medications such as benzodiazepines and opioids, are significant global issues. Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMP), which allow healthcare providers to track and monitor patients’ high-risk medication history have been implemented widely throughout North America and recently in Victoria, Australia. Australia’s PDMP uses a red alert notification to notify healthcare providers to patients at ‘high risk’ of medication related harm. Very little is known about healthcare providers beliefs about the meaning of these notifications and what impact these meanings have on the clinical encounter and patient outcome.