HealthLeaders article on drug diversion and the impact on hospitals

KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN · Jul 9, 2015

What I like in articles like this is an idea that brainwashing and police state solves everything. Feels like "welcome back to the USSR", with daily indoctrination starting from kindergarten and walking in pairs holding hands at all times (that was the way one good friend of mine was taught to walk while visiting States for goverment business in mid-80th, lest she could be seduced or kidnapped by FBI).

I worked in quite a few places in different capacities, and, honestly, all of them besides one were just inviting someone to get some good stuff if desired. All multitudes of signing here and there, 30 and 45- minutes limits and so forth could be bypassed in a blink by someone harismatic or manipulative enough. The only one that (well, sort of) working system was employed by a small chronically understaffed inner city hospital where were no sign-offs, no limits and no education per se. Instead, each provider with access to drugs had empty vials where the waste of each drug was collected sepatarely, and another one for dropped pills if that happened. At the end of each shift, all waste, lost pills and empty vials were collected by pharmacy and randomly tested for content to prevent diluion or washouts. There was one dialysis tech who was in recovery around that time, and he was not only holding the job in that particular hospital by his teeth but also recommended it for other his "recovery colleagues", reasoning that the system was making diversion much more difficult than usual.