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Meijer Joins Growing Group of Retail Pharmacies to Integrate with MAPS to Prevent Opioid Abuse

Meijer Joins Growing Group of Retail Pharmacies to Integrate with MAPS to Prevent Opioid Abuse

Media Contact: LARA Communications 517-373-9280
Email: mediainfo@michigan.gov

December 19, 2017 – Meijer is the latest retail pharmacy to integrate the new Michigan Automated Prescription System (MAPS) into its existing pharmacy management systems in pharmacy locations across Michigan. The integration equips Meijer with a vital tool to combat the ongoing opioid crisis.

Earlier this year, Kroger, also with the help of Appriss Health, announced integration with MAPS.

“Meijer and Appriss Health are supportive partners that have worked relentlessly to help LARA integrate the new MAPS into existing systems in order to help address the opioid epidemic in Michigan,” said Lt. Gov. Brian Calley. “Meijer’s integration will provide pharmacists with real-time information about potentially harmful prescribing and dispensing trends and help pharmacists make better and more informed decisions.” 

A $2.47 million appropriation from the state legislature gave LARA the opportunity to begin replacing the old MAPS, which successfully launched on April 4, 2017. Using $1.8 million remaining from the state appropriations and after the Department received an additional $373,000 in a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, Calley along with Appriss Health announced on June 19, 2017 that the state would cover the full integration of MAPS into the clinical workflow. Michigan health systems, physician groups and pharmacies have until August 31, 2019 to complete the integration with the available funds.

Providers who integrate will also receive Appriss Health’s NarxCare, a comprehensive substance use disorder platform with powerful analytics for risk assessment and patient support. NarxCare aggregates two years of historical prescription data from providers and pharmacies, including quantities and active prescriptions, and presents interactive, visual representations of the data. The platform also provides tools and resources to enable prescribers, dispensers and care teams to help patients and connect them to treatment if necessary.

In addition to being integrated with Michigan’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP), MAPS, Meijer is also integrated with the state PDMPs in Ohio and Indiana. 

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Additional Information – MAPS

The new MAPS provides the state’s prescribers with a user-friendly portal, making it more efficient for practitioners to obtain information of controlled substances and Schedule 2-5 drugs that have been dispensed. The MAPS portal is administered by the LARA’s Bureau of Professional Licensing.

Gov. Rick Snyder formed the Michigan Prescription Drug and Opioid Abuse Task Force in June 2015 and one of their key recommendations was to update and replace the problematic MAPS platform. The governor also established the Prescription Drug and Opioid Abuse Commission to continue the work initiated by the task force. In addition to the new system and the work of the commission, the Snyder Administration along with a group of bipartisan legislators, recently unveiled a comprehensive legislative strategy focused on building on the state’s to tackle the opioid crisis that plagues our communities.

Benefits of the new MAPS include:

  • The new PMP AWARxE platform has the fastest response time in the drug monitoring industry. Record lookups that once took up to 10 minutes now are completed in seconds.
  • A dashboard provides patient alerts, recent request history and the ability to maintain delegate user activity within the prescriber’s main account.   
  • Patient report requests include seamless interstate data sharing. Patient reports include prescription history, prescriber and dispenser information that can all be provided in a complete summary.
  • Real-time data uploads occur during the day versus the current process of batched data uploaded nightly.
  • Online tutorials are available for providers using the system for the first time.

More information on the new MAPS can be found at the following resources: