Drug Diversion

janeS

We are a 3200 population healthcare facility and the task has fallen to me to devise a policy on Drug Diversion. Obviously we already have a Fitness for Duty policy which allows us to test due to 'reasonable suspicion' but the diversion is really dealing more with the theft, patient safety and care.

Has anyone addressed this in their workplace and/or can anyone suggest resources for same? Also, how often do you randomly test a part of the population?

Thanks,
Jane

System

That seems like a massive undertaking. A diversion plan, IMHO, would have to being with the practice of storing and disbursing meds. You probably have policies in place that include locking med carts and cabinets which are in a locked place near nurses' stations. Start by reviewing those polices and conducting inservice training. Secondly, have periodic auditing done (perhaps by the charge nurse) and record the results. Third, investigate any inconsistencies. These may be things that you already have in place but have not followed through with.

Another idea would be to contact another healthcare facility and ask them to share their policy. You can adapt one from that without having to start from scratch.

We do random testing bi-monthly.

Down_the_Middle

Jane:
I'm not certain what your definition of Drug Diversion is, so will withhold my suggestions and avoid speculating....
We randomly test our 2700 healthcare employees monthly (25% of population)and do a 9-panel urine test to identify any impairment.

deniseE

at a place where my mom worked...all the drugs were marked with a upc code...and they had a hand-held computer (like the fed-ex guys use) and had to swipe before the drug was taken out for distribution. I think the long term plan was to link the prescription written by the dr. with the actual dispensing. then there was a clear trail from the dr. to the nurse to the patient.

you knew who precscribed what, by whom it was dispensed and which patient chart it was linked.

janeS

>Jane:
>I'm not certain what your definition of Drug
>Diversion is, so will withhold my suggestions
>and avoid speculating....
>We randomly test our 2700 healthcare employees
>monthly (25% of population)and do a 9-panel
>urine test to identify any impairment.

Thanks, Down the Middle...MY definition of Drug Diversion is any case in which the patient did not receive it or it was not properly wasted(which means both could boil down to theft).

I appreciated your response regarding random drug screening. Do you do this in-house or send out to a certified lab (or is your lab certified?) and do you know the approximate cost?

Thanks so much,
Jane