Email Communications Improve Clinician Engagement With Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs

MONDAY, Jan. 5, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Email communications can increase clinician engagement with prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs), according to a study published online Dec. 19 in JAMA Health Forum.

In a randomized clinical trial, Adam Sacarny, Ph.D., from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University in New York City, and colleagues examined whether email communications can increase PDMP use and reduce guideline-discordant prescribing among clinicians. Clinicians were randomly assigned to two intervention groups or a usual care group in a 1:1:1 ratio. Clinicians in the intervention groups were sent emails highlighting their lack of PDMP engagement, with hyperlinks to the website to rectify it. Email content differed by group to focus on either the legal requirements to use PDMP or the clinical benefits of use.

The study included 7,872 clinicians; 6,574 were physicians. The researchers found that 11.8 percent in the usual-care group had PDMP engagement. The engagement rate was raised by 26.5 percentage points by legal requirement emails and by 14.2 percentage points by clinical benefit emails. Account holding, database searches, and searches for patients with a history of risky prescribing were increased with both types of emails. The effects lasted for at least seven months. No significant difference was seen across the groups for guideline-discordant prescribing.

“Reminder emails emphasizing either a legal mandate or clinical benefits had large and durable effects on PDMP engagement as measured by active PDMP account holding and searching. Effects were largest for emails focused on legal requirements,” the authors write. “No meaningful effects on prescribing were observed.”

One author disclosed ties to Secretariat; a second author has served as an expert witness in lawsuits against opioid manufacturers and distributors.

Abstract/Full Text