Hospital controlled substancediversion case studies: Cautionary tales

Controlled substances are critical to patient care, and hospitals have
always been vulnerable to their diversion by trusted employees. However, in a number of recent
cases, employees have been able to divert considerable quantities of controlled substances
undetected over extended periods of time. These diversions resulted in overdoses and deaths,
patient undertreatment, multimillion-dollar civil monetary penalties, and comprehensive remedial
settlements. The Drug Enforcement Administration asserted that the involved hospitals ‘
noncompliance with mandatory recordkeeping, reporting, and security requirements enabled the
diversion. This article focuses on several of those high-profile cases and discusses how hospitals
can prevent and detect similar employee diversion of controlled substances.