Your Greatest Asset: How to Make Staff Your Eyes and Ears in Diversion Prevention

Your Greatest Asset: How to Make Staff Your Eyes and Ears in Diversion Prevention

Gain insights from experts and survivors on how drug diversion can be spotted long before it harms patients or staff. This short "Diversion Insights Quick Take" zeroes in on something many hospitals overlook: smart, manual audits that work even if you haven't got fancy software. Pharmacist and host Terri Vidals talks directly to healthcare professionals who are juggling limited time, basic tools and serious responsibility. Instead of making it feel impossible, she breaks the process into clear, doable steps.

As she puts it, "The point is, do something rather than nothing." You’ll hear how automated dispensing cabinets already hold a "treasure trove of data" that can be pulled into simple reports or spreadsheets. Terri walks through exactly what to look at: high-dispense users of fentanyl, morphine, hydromorphone and oxycodone, waste reports, and those suspicious cancel patterns that don’t match normal clinical practice.

The trick, she explains, is to compare like with like – procedural nurses with procedural nurses, med-surg with med-surg – and focus on genuine outliers rather than whoever happens to sit at the top of a list. One of the most eye-opening points is the risk linked to non-controlled medications. Frequent cancels or odd usage of these drugs can flag attempts to mask diversion of controlled substances, such as using a non-controlled med to falsify waste.

Terri also suggests using basic EHR reports, like barcode scanning compliance and charting times, to spot unusual habits without drowning in data. This quick session is ideal for diversion leads, pharmacists, nurse managers and anyone tasked with keeping drugs safe with minimal tech support. It’s practical, brisk and grounded in real experience, showing that meaningful oversight can start with simple, well-aimed checks. So, what’s one small audit you could start running this month?