Drug diversion in healthcare facilities has become a visible and growing problem. The impact can be broad, touching patients, care providers, drug diverters, and the community at large. And the U.S. Department of Justice and Drug Enforcement Agency have begun ramping up efforts to stop drug diversion in its tracks. Drug Diversion May Go Undetected and Underreported Even facilities that are catching and reporting incidents of drug diversion, however, can find themselves overwhelmed with the task of detecting, investigating, and preventing future incidents. In fact, Commander John Burke, president of Pharmaceutical Diversion Education, calculated that there are roughly 37,000 incidents of drug diversion throughout the U.S. in any given year — while the numbers actually reported are far lower than that, at around 350 incidents per year nationwide. This indicates that the full scope of drug diversion has been largely undetected by many facilities, and that reporting of incidents may be falling short of the recommended standard. Watch this on-demand webinar to learn the essentials of a drug diversion program, including: The 9 key components of an effective, full lifecycle drug monitoring program.
- What exactly constitutes drug diversion in a healthcare facility, and the most common indicators that employees may be diverting and abusing drugs.
- Which drugs are most often diverted in a healthcare setting — plus, a surprising fact about the types of people engaged in drug diversion.
- The ways drug diversion can affect care providers, patients, and drug diverters.
- The ways drug diversion can affect care providers, patients, and drug diverters.
