A long-awaited prescription monitoring database in Pennsylvania should help protect would-be addicts from themselves, a leading family doctor said Thursday.

The online system is set to be in place by Labor Day, giving clinicians an easy-access tool to check on a patient's prescription history before offering drug therapy. The idea is to prevent "doctor shopping" and the overprescribing that can drive addiction, especially to opioid painkillers.

Dr. Robert Rodak, president of the Harrisburg-based Pennsylvania Academy of Family Physicians, said at-risk patients are relatively few.

But "our hope is that if we identify [them] early, they won't go on to become addicted" to prescription narcotics, said Dr. Rodak, an osteopathic physician with UPMC in Erie. "Once the stream dries up, they won't be using heroin or something else and running into bigger problems."

State health officials have yet to announce specific guidelines for Pennsylvania's database, including whether physicians will be required to check before writing prescriptions for narcotics. The state is among the last in the country to start operating such a system for clinicians’ use.

"I think the academy would prefer recommendations and guidelines as opposed to mandates because every patient is different. Every situation might be different," Dr. Rodak said. "We would rather it not become a punitive type of interaction between physicians" and the state.

Read OVERDOSED: How doctors wrote the script for an epidemic. Email the team at overdosed@post-gazette.com, and read the OVERDOSED blog for more on the Post-Gazette’s investigation, readers’ stories, and the latest news about the drug epidemic.

First Published: May 27, 2016, 12:12 p.m.