New research provides insights into waste
events, reduced hospital variances and improved
investigations.
ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 11,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Bluesight, the leader in
Medication Intelligence™ solutions, today unveiled its
2024 Diversion Trends Report, a comprehensive review of the
impact of monitoring, prevention, and identification of controlled
substance diversion in healthcare settings. Examining data across
controlled substance transactions from January 2022 through December 2023, this report provides healthcare
providers with critical insights to drive operational improvements
and enhance patient safety.
Key highlights from the report include:
- Diversion Investigations are being closed 37 days sooner on
average: a sign of enhanced workflows and more efficient
evidence collection.
- Waste events, which can be a risk factor for
diversion, added up to over 16 million wasted
packages or approximately $38
million in lost costs.
- Top departments involved in variances include
nursing (77.7%), anesthesiology (11.8%) and pharmacy (5%).
- Fentanyl (24%) is the top drug associated with
variances, followed by Midazolam (15%), and Hydromorphone
(10%).
- Discrepancies in controlled substance orders,
administrations, wastes, or returns per hospital per quarter
decreased by nearly 24% since 2022, enabling hospitals to
better prioritize their diversion detection efforts.
- Half of transaction variances were flagged due to
incorrect documentation, meaning there was mischarting or a
discrepancy that reflected the wrong patient, drug, or dosage.
The report found that diversion monitoring efforts are
improving, with fewer discrepant transactions (from 8% to 7%) and
more efficient investigations. At the beginning of 2022,
investigations were taking an average of 84 days to close. As of
December 2023, they are being
resolved 37 days sooner, averaging 47 days. Outside of this report,
this trend continues into 2024 with investigations averaging only
38 days as of March 2024. This
consistent decline indicates enhanced workflows and more efficient
evidence collection, supported by increased staff resources for
diversion as noted in the 2023-2024 Hospital Pharmacy Operations
Report. The report also highlights risks for diversion, such as
waste events of over 16 million wasted packages – nearly a quarter
of which were Fentanyl packages, correlating with Fentanyl being
the drug with the most discrepancies as well. Other patterns
illustrated in the report include the top categories, drugs,
settings, and staff roles associated with suspected and confirmed
diversion.
"The challenge of drug diversion is an issue for all healthcare
facilities, requiring a mix of consistent monitoring supported by
technology and tools to help our healthcare workers effectively do
their jobs. This report is a positive reminder of the impact that
new systems can have in helping to tackle this problem. However,
there is still more work to be done in this area," said
Kevin MacDonald, Bluesight CEO, and
co-founder. "By leveraging advanced data integration and
comprehensive monitoring technology, such as ControlCheck, we are
setting new standards. With our commitment to continued innovation
and enhanced patient safety, we support over 850 hospitals in the
critical mission to improve compliance, reduce costs and track
high-risk drugs and individuals."
Report Methodology
The report examined data from
Bluesight's ControlCheck product from January 2022 through December 2023, analyzing over 127M controlled substance transactions at 794
hospitals and health systems across the
United States. During this period, the dataset increased
from 354 hospitals to 794. The growth of total hospitals included
in this analysis contributes to the growth of certain figures such
as an increase in variances per quarter, investigations per
quarter, and confirmed diversion per quarter.
The full report can be found here
About Bluesight
Bluesight solves supply chain
inefficiencies and reduces risk by using AI and machine learning to
surface actionable analytics for every step of the medication
lifecycle. Through our suite of Medication Intelligence™
solutions, Bluesight brings simplicity, visibility, and
predictability to the complex world of medication management. More
than 1,600 U.S. and Canadian hospitals utilize Bluesight solutions
to optimize their hospital pharmacy practices by improving
efficiency, reducing medication costs, and increasing compliance
and safety.
For more information, please visit Bluesight's website.
View original content to download
multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bluesight-trends-report-reveals-quicker-diversion-investigations-and-improved-controlled-substance-documentation-302194256.html
SOURCE Bluesight