The non-insured health benefits data program collects information about the types of drugs that are being prescribed to members of a first nation community, and that's shared. Non-identifying information about the types of drugs that are prescribed to members of the community is shared with the communities themselves.
In the Atlantic region, some communities have worked with pharmacies and physicians to limit the number of prescription pills in the community at any one time. They've partnered on the way medication is shared. For example, changing from a prescription bottle to a blister pack helps them to monitor the number of prescription drugs in the community.
Again, partnering with provincial health authorities, so that opiate replacement therapy is delivered within the community in partnership with the first nations health programs and services, has been beneficial in terms of the community getting a better grasp on the level of prescription drugs available in a community at any one time.
Those initiatives have demonstrated a reduction in crime in the community, in that people are no longer into the addiction behaviours and the criminal activity to obtain the prescription drugs, because they have the availability of opiate replacement therapy.