Rx Graph Overview

CAUTION / IMPORTANT REMINDER: NarxCare is an application that provides a set of data, visualizations, and analytics to support prescribers’ and dispensers’ review of controlled substance data from government managed and regulated Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs). NarxCare is intended to aid, not replace, medical decision making. None of the information presented in NarxCare should be used as sole justification for providing or not providing medications.

The Rx Graph tile parses the PDMP data into one interactive graph for prescribers and dispensers. The Rx Graph tile displays the dispensation information in a manner that allows you to see important patterns to aid in more informed medical decision-making.

The Rx Graph displays information in rows in reverse chronological order; meaning the most recent dispensations are displayed on the left side of the graph and the oldest are displayed on the right. The vertical axis displays the number of providers, with the most recent providers at the bottom of the graph.

The Rx Graph allows you to look further into a patient’s Narx Scores and review the summation of factors that may have led to those scores.

• Dispensations filled by the same prescriber within the "early fill" timeframe will not show as overlapping dispensations on the Rx Graph. However, if a prescriber resides in the same practice as another prescriber, there may be a one- or two-day overlap.
• Overlapping for each medication type only pertains to dispensations prescribed by different prescribers (i.e., different DEA numbers).

The checkboxes at the top of the graph can be selected or deselected to alter what medications you would like displayed.

Dispensations are color-coded as follows:

• Narcotics (opioids) = red
• Buprenorphines = purple
• Sedatives (benzodiazepines, sleep aids, etc.) = blue
• Stimulants = green
• Other = grey*

*When a report includes dispensations that are not part of the Narx Scores calculation, those dispensations are displayed in grey. Other dispensations can include anesthetics, cannabinoids, GI narcotics, steroids, and medications used to treat neuropain (e.g., gabapentin).

Each pixel in the graph represents one (1) day. Therefore, a 30-day dispensation is represented by a rectangle about 1 cm wide and a 1–3-day dispensation appears as a narrow vertical bar.

Furthermore, a single dispensation block is represented with a 50% opacity. Therefore, in areas where the colors are darker, multiple, overlapping dispensations are present.

The Rx Graph is interactive. You can click on a specific dispensation to view information, including the dispensing pharmacy, for that dispensation only, or you can click and drag over multiple dispensations to view information for all the selected dispensations.

CAUTION / IMPORTANT REMINDER: Prescribers and dispensers use Rx Graph to further review details in the patient’s dispensation history while attending to their patients. Rx Graph is intended to aid, not replace, medical decision-making. None of the information presented should be used as sole justification for providing or not providing medications.