Combatting the Problem of Drug Diversion
Between the opioid crisis, the relaxation and over-scripting of prescription medications, and increased stress and burnout, drug diversion has reached epidemic levels at hospitals, pharmacies and other healthcare organizations.
Studies in the United States have shown that 10%–15% percent of healthcare professionals will misuse substances during their lifetime, and rates of prescription drug abuse and addiction are five times higher among physicians than in the general population. Additionally, an investigation into the Texas Board of Nursing found that approximately one-third of all disciplinary actions taken against nurses were drug or alcohol related.i
Although most U.S. healthcare organizations attempt to monitor for drug diversion, not only to stop it from happening but to ensure compliance with regulation set out by the Controlled Substances Act, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) guidelines, Joint Commission Standards, and, for those that take Medicare programs, CMS guidelines, almost 95% of drug diversion cases within hospitals remain uninvestigated.ii
The reason: widely used manual methods pull just a small subset of transactions.
Addicted employees put themselves, their colleagues and patients at risk. Patients may be denied pain relief or exposed to blood-borne pathogens while health systems may be subject to fines and regulatory liability. Given these dire consequences, building an effective drug diversion program must be a key area of concern for healthcare facilities around the globe.
iiForbes
Save time and increase efficiency with medication management technology
- Break down information siloes across your EHR, HR and pharmacy dispensing solutions.
- Automate the time-intensive and error-prone manual processes associated with drug diversion monitoring.
- See the complete picture of drug diversion activity – who, when, what, and how, from dispensing to wasting, across all drugs in your cabinet.
- Take advantage of dashboards, quick reports, and alerts functionality in a single application for quick-and-easy reporting without manual effort.
Take a proactive approach to uncovering drug diversion
- Quickly detect and respond to drug diversion to minimize the lasting impacts on patients, care providers, and diverters.
- Monitor all activity electronically to spot the red flags of medication diversion and other anomalous behavior using sophisticated algorithms (and human evaluation) to identify when activities indicate a high risk of diversion.
- Access industry experts who become an extension of your team, providing daily proactive monitoring of specific use cases to detect drug diversion.
- Reduce risks associated with heavy fines and reputational damage.
Unify drug diversion monitoring across your organization
- Implement a solution for monitoring that applies consistently across your organization.
- Build a culture of compliance, where employees feel empowered to report incidents.
- Manage the full lifecycle of your drug diversion program from detection and investigation to remediation, reporting and prevention in a single platform, so you can quickly respond to potential incidents.
- Demonstrate compliance posture and program effectiveness for internal committees or external auditors and regulators.
HOW WE HELP
Industry Leaders Discuss Identifying and Dealing With Drug Diversion
Gain insights for identifying and remediating drug diversion cases, the steps for establishing robust drug diversion monitoring programs at patient care facilities, and more.
From Newsworthy Diversion to Proactive Protection: Mount Sinai Health System’s Story of Drug Diversion Monitoring
“Before FairWarning, auditing tasks were performed manually with pharmacy taking the lead then handing off to other departments with little accountability. Now, with FairWarning, the process is seamless, more efficient and multidisciplinary. It’s just a better program.”
Associate Director of Administration & Director of Pharmacy
Director of Regulatory Affairs at Mount Sinai Brooklyn
