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Insight Paper 7.28.2022

Monitoring: An Essential Part of Drug Diversion Detection

Exploring the benefits of outsourcing for drug diversion monitoring.

Drug Diversion Prevention - Monitoring

Drug diversion continues to be a complex problem that may place patients, employees, and organizations at risk both physically and legally. To comply with regulations and best practices, healthcare organizations should implement a drug diversion program in their facilities. The main objective of a drug diversion program is to monitor and detect diversion at each step of the medication lifecycle. To learn more about monitoring and detecting drug diversion, refer to Trexin’s TIP “A Strategy for Monitoring and Detecting Drug Diversion.”

Healthcare organizations continue to become more technologically advanced as it pertains to medical records and inventory management systems. As such, there is a growing opportunity to leverage that data for your drug diversion program. There are many vendor solutions available to make monitoring and detecting diversion more efficient (reference Trexin’s Insight Paper “A Review of Drug Diversion Solutions”). These solutions use analytics to help identify potential drug diversion within healthcare facilities. However, these solutions alone will not prevent or detect drug diversion. Activity must be monitored and reviewed by the drug diversion team. As described in “Drug Diversion Compliance, Prevention, Monitoring, and Detection”, monitoring refers to the physical and analytical strategies deployed to watch over and keep track of medications. Many healthcare organizations may not have the time or resources for a dedicated team to monitor activity for drug diversion. Outsourced consultants can provide assistance in the form of dedicated team members who monitor for drug diversion at your organization. Outsourcing can also provide resources to build out your existing team and provide needed support and analysis – Trexin is able to customize the solution to each organization’s specific needs.

There are many benefits that outsourcing provides to your organization’s drug diversion monitoring efforts. Outsourcing allows for internal employees to maintain current workloads and practices while benefiting from the knowledge and attention to detail that comes with having a specialized consultant perform specific monitoring activities. Additionally, drug diversion monitoring solutions do not provide immediate success. An outsourced specialist can help with the vendor selection process, implementation and training, and ongoing system management thereafter. During the implementation phase, an outsourced consultant can dedicate time and resources to ensure the process runs smoothly and quickly, without impacting the status of existing projects at the organization. During the education and transition phases, an outsourced specialist can help establish monitoring workflows and train employees to the new system allowing for minimal disruption and maximum benefit. Throughout the ongoing management phase, consultants can assist in a multitude of ways, depending on the needs the organization. Even if the organization has a dedicated resource for diversion monitoring, an outsourced specialist can provide additional monitoring and investigative support. Outsourced specialists can also act as project managers to guide and lead members of the organization as they adapt to the new tool.

Although drug diversion monitoring solutions help organizations detect drug diversion more efficiently, these tools are only one part of a larger process necessary to address drug diversion. Healthcare organizations need well-crafted policies and procedures to thoughtfully and legally address drug diversion. Having a specialist dedicated to crafting and updating drug diversion policies and procedures can help organizations focus on what they do best, caring for patients.

Contact a Trexin Advisor to learn more about our drug diversion monitoring services.

Tagged in: Healthcare & Life Sciences