is this considered a drug diversion?

[Ms.RN]

my facility got the narcotic for one of my patients from the pharmacy and when the pharmacy sent the narcotic, it also included the narcotic sign out form for nurses, nurses write down the time, number of tablet and signature of nurse giving the med. we put all the narcotic sign out form in the binder and at the end of the shift we count the narcotic with outgoing and incoming nurses. i was counting with the day shift nurse and the day nurse says the narcotic sheet for a narcotic that was delivered yesterday is missing from the binder and she notified the don. the don was furious and said this is a serious drug diversion problem. but the narcotic was in the narcotic box witht full amount, just the sign out sheet is missing. so is this considered a drug diversion?

[debRN0417]

So find out from the pharmacy how many were dispensed, then go to the MAR and count the number that have been administered...hopefully everybody signed out for all the meds that they administered, then you will know if any are missing. I agree with CCM and others that narc sheets need to be kept in a log that the pages cannot be removed. If drugs are delivered with the sheet and someone wants to all they have to do is take the sheet and the drugs....oh well. Before a melt down occurs one should establish whether or not any drugs are missing- not just a piece of paper.

[Forever Sunshine, ASN, RN]

Y'all keep the sheets for counting narcs in a binder? What's to prevent someone from taking the paper out of the binder and taking the card of narcs out of the drawer??? We have to use a bound book with pages that wouldn't come out if you tossed the book into the hurricane booth and the mall.

What you described is NOT drug diversion since you had the drugs.

We do. Our narc books look worse than a disorganized high school student's history note book. Its pathetic. Pages all crumpled, folded, falling out.

We have had that issue before and our DON acted the same way. Its a missing page. Not a missing blister pack. A missing blister pack would be a narcotic diversion.

When narcs are delievered the RN takes the top sticker and puts it in another notebook. So they have another record of what narc scripts are being used.