A group led by UF Health researchers is fighting prescription drug abuse by making a statewide database more useful for physicians. Helped by a three-year, $600,000 grant, the team of clinicians, researchers and law enforcement officials hope to make Florida’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program more effective by using the data that is already in the system to generate indicators that will help physicians make faster, better prescribing decisions for patients, said Chris Delcher, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the UF College of Medicine’s department of health outcomes and policy. The data can also give physicians a more accurate measure of how much morphine patients are receiving, even if they have visited multiple clinics in different parts of the state. The PDMP was created in 2009 to help prevent so-called “doctor shopping.”  — Doug Bennett