Here are some recommendations from Hospitals & Health Networks to help hospitals avoid opioid and other drug abuse and theft:
- “Review policies and procedures that are in place to minimize diversion. ”
- “Create standards for ordering and prescribing controlled substances. ”
- “Establish education and training across multiple disciplines to educate staff on controlled substance diversion.”
- “Place camera surveillance in high-risk areas.”
- “When something does go wrong, have procedures ready to launch to investigate potential cases of diversion and discrepancies in controlled substance inventory.”
- “Review staff practices that can help avoid the problem on the front end.”