Talking with hospitals, two of the key factors to almost all decisions are “Patient Safety” and “Quality of Care”. Unfortunately, when drug diversion comes into play, both of those get thrown out the window.
This week a nurse at a rehabilitation center in Connecticut was accused of swapping prescription pain medication, including Oxycodone and Diazepam, for over-the-counter medications like Tylenol and Claritin.
Police ended up charging her with reckless endangerment, illegally obtaining narcotics, illegally possessing narcotics, possession of a controlled substance, failure to keep prescription medication in a proper container and misrepresentation of a controlled substance.
While it is great that she is getting charged with these crimes, what is the cost to the patient and to the insurer?
For the patients, how much additional pain were they being subjected to (Quality of Care)? They didn’t need to be feeling this pain, they thought they were taking pain relievers, yet they were getting limited to no relief. How much additional care and rehab were they going through, because they were wondering why they were still hurting and not getting better? What if they were allergic to the medications that they were unknowingly switched to (Patient Safety)?
As for the insurers, most people may think who cares, but they were paying out claims for medication that their insured wasn’t getting, prolonging recovery and increasing the cost of care. What if the patients were given the proper medication and recovery time was reduced by two weeks (Quality of Care)? How much would that have saved the insurers (and helped the patient)? The additional two weeks of care circles back to all of us in the form of increased premiums.
Even this one nurse diverting these medications can have prolonged effects on the entire healthcare system. This is why drug diversion monitoring products like HelioMetrics Rx Diversion is needed by all healthcare providers that dispense controlled substances.