Elimination of the DATA-Waiver Program: How will it Impact the Opioid Crisis?
Have you heard about the signing of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023? With this Act, Congress eliminated the DATA-Waiver Program. This means: A DATA-Waiver registration is no longer required to treat patients with buprenorphine for opioid use disorder. There are no longer any limits or patient caps on the number of patients a prescriber […]
Read MoreHospitals Must Employ Safeguards to Prevent Drug Diversion
“Prevention is better than cure,” the Dutch philosopher Desiderius Erasmus once observed. Clearly, Erasmus’ maxim – first mentioned in the 1500s – had staying power: the phrase is now ubiquitous in healthcare circles and healthy-lifestyle campaigns. Application of the “prevention principle,” however, has been the real challenge. Nowhere is this more evident than in the […]
Read MoreExtraordinary Compliance Requirements
Sovah Health has agreed to pay $4.36 million to settle claims that the hospital system violated the Controlled Substance Act. The violations occurred between 2017 and 2020 with two employees, in separate independent schemes, diverting controlled substances. Both plead guilty and are being sentenced to time in federal prison. By now, we are used to […]
Read MoreSignificant Loss
How does the DEA define significant loss? That is a question many of you who oversee controlled substances have asked over the years. I have asked myself this same question. I recently listened to a webinar by a DEA Diversion Investigator. He reminded the audience that anytime you see a Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) […]
Read MoreVerbal Orders: Trust but Verify
How common are verbal orders at your facility? How timely are the physicians authenticating those verbal orders? Does anyone other than the nurse entering the verbal order ever check in with the patient to see if the controlled substance ordered and charted as administered was effective? At most facilities, awareness of diversion is lacking. Because […]
Read MoreAnother Life lost
There has been a lot of chatter on list serves within the diversion prevention community about the nearly 8 gallons of fentanyl diverted from a New Hampshire hospital. The initial report stated, “At least 23 bags of the drug had been removed without being wasted or provided to patients”, but that number climbed to 583. […]
Read MoreMitigating Diversion
I recently read a blog by Dennis Tribble, a fellow pharmacist and IHFDA member, posted in ASHP titled Why do we talk about preventing diversion? I agree with his “rant” (his word not mine!). We use the word prevention when we talk about mitigating the risks for diversion, but we must be mindful of the fact […]
Read MoreIncluding the Infection Prevention Department
Do you have a solid drug diversion monitoring program? If you said yes, that’s great! For those of you that do have a monitoring program, how many of you have participation from the Infection Preventionist (IP) during a suspected case involving injectable medication? Any time there is diversion that involves injectable medications, we need to […]
Read MoreWords Matter
Unintentionally, when talking about addiction, many people use language that is stigmatizing. In today’s time, we understand that addiction is a chronic, treatable, medical condition. Referring to substance abuse as a medical condition will help reduce the stigma and hopefully lead to those with a substance abuse disorder being more willing to seek treatment. Rather […]
Read MoreThe Drug Diversion Triad
I recently heard a conference speaker, Maureen Burger, talk about the Drug Diversion Triad. All three parts of the triangle must exist before the healthcare worker commits diversion. The three parts of the triangle are Pressure or Motivation, Rationalization or Justification, and Opportunity. Pressure can come from external sources such as a financial need or […]
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