Paper: Leadership's Responsibility in the Prevention, & Detection of Drug Diversion (40th Biennial Convention (October 31st- November 4th, 2009))

Monday, November 2, 2009: 3:50 PM

Judith Pranger, MSN, RN, BC-NE
Genesis Medical Center, Davenport, IA

Learning Objective 1: Describe a multidisciplinary approach to proactive drug diversion prevention

Learning Objective 2: Demonstrate the impact of an active team in discouraging diversion through education and awareness

As leaders we’ve all experienced the situation when one of our staff comes to us with the "suspicion" that drug diversion is occurring in our facility. At that moment, when we realize that one of our staff is involved in drug diversion, we immediately start the litany of consequences: possible harm to the patient, the emotional effect on the staff and the life-changing event the alleged staff member is about to encounter. We ask ourselves what strategies could we have implemented to prevent diversion?Was there a proactive approach that could have been deployed for early detection and intervention?

After experiencing this devastating event at our facility, we were determined to establish a plan. Through an extensive literature search we found a program that Ohio State University Medical Center had implemented. We tailored their approach to our community hospital setting and have realized phenomenal results. Our multidisciplinary Code “N” team has become a venue to prevent and discourage drug diversion. Elements of the team include: awareness through case studies and education, the utilization of prevention tools, methods to assess behavior and patient care indicators and the ability to identify levels of suspicion. The team facilitates intervention and rapid closure on diversion cases.

This presentation will tell our story with multiple examples experienced throughout our journey. The challenges and opportunities afforded us the ability to establish, evaluate and maintain the program. Lessons learned, including legal aspects will be addressed.

See more of: Examples of Leading Change
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