GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo., May 4, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Customers of Safe Rx, a Caring Closures International company, today presented results of a locking vial dispensing test at the annual conference of the Ohio Association of Community Health Centers, the association representing Ohio’s federally qualified health centers.
Representatives of Safe Rx customer and OACHC member Lower Lights Christian Health Center spoke on a panel entitled Practices for Integration of Behavioral Health and Substance Use Disorder. The presentation included data collected by centers in Ohio counties on the use of Safe Rx Locking Prescription Vials (LPVs®) as a solution to diversion, compliance, and pediatric poisonings in patients receiving medication for opioid use disorders (MOUD).
The study included 340 patients and showed that 0% of patients had medication missing in the LPV program compared to 39% prior. LPV use in MAT was proven to alleviate provider concerns over diversion, and to reduce the top three barriers to patient enrollment in MAT, which generates a 74% 12-month reduction in acute care utilization by the patient. The results have led to national media coverage in Pharmacy Times, Becker’s Hospital Review, and other publications, and are driving Medicaid coverage reviews in multiple states.
In a harbinger of additional trials underway, 100% of surveyed providers in the study supported the use of LPVs for all controlled substance dispensing beyond MOUD medications. Four clinical studies are assessing the benefits of LPV dispensing for controlled substances more broadly, with initial results expected by year-end 2023 leading to a potential expansion of pharmacy reimbursement.
“With initial results driving reimbursement in MAT, and results pending in broader controlled substance dispensing, we should see the beginning of a rapid transformation in pharmacy dispensing and practices over the next several years,” said Milton Cohen, President & CEO of CCI. “Controlled substances are kept under double lock & key through the whole pharmacy supply chain but get sent home in containers that by specification any six-year-old can open. We need to stop looking at vials as everyday packaging and see them for the access control devices they are,” he added.
About Safe Rx and Caring Closures International
Caring Closures International (CCI) is transforming public health and consumer product safety with patented innovation modernizing one of the most successful interventions in public health history. CCI’s initial Safe Rx® line of locking prescription vials (LPVs®) are sold into multiple healthcare and pharmacy verticals for use in medication safety and pharmacy dispensing, and cut off pilfering, a leading source of diversion and the number one source for teen drug misuse in the United States for over a decade. CCI’s cap & closure technology is ultimately expected to replace a broad cross section of child-resistant packaging across multiple product categories, updating a proven intervention to help solve several epidemic scale public health crises. For more information, please visit www.safe-rx.com.
