Controlled Substance Tracking And The Role Technology Plays
Controlled Substance Tracking
Controlled Substance Tracking. Since 1975, the Knox Company has successfully developed innovative rapid access solutions that provide fast, safe and secure entry, while minimizing damage and maximizing safety in environments that include campus safety and security.
The Knox eLock System incorporates an innovative electronic technology that provides cost-effective end-to-end access control to protect vital assets.The designers created it for maximum security and accountability, while delivering ruggedness and quality.
The Problem
The Drug Enforcement Agency tactfully uses the term “drug diversion” to describe the act of stealing medication. Providers misappropriate controlled substances for their own use, in spite of protocols that dictate that controlled medications in EMS should only be used for patients. Nationwide, more than 60% of 10 drug overdoses involve an opioid, such as fentanyl or morphine. Drug addiction can affect anyone — young or old.
Ems providers commonly use opioids to treat patients in severe pain, and anyone with access can divert them. The risk of theft is significant anywhere Controlled Substance are administered and stored. While external theft is a concern, the real risk comes from the people entrusted with those drugs.
Drug diversion costs the healthcare industry more than $70 billion per year, according to one estimate. Some researchers say as many as 10% of all medical professionals will divert drugs from their workplace at some point in their career. With the ongoing opioid addiction issues across the globe this will only get worse.
The Average Hospital Is Conducting Twice As Many Investigations.
Other issues are of course relevant and very important such as expired medications and Controlled Substance tracking for utilization (shift log & run log). Lot number recall and man hours involved are ever present. Inventory tracking, re-orders and overages due to misreported quantities whether over or under are of consideration as well.
Controlled Substance Tracking Currently
Most organizations currently use paper sheets that anyone could alter. Furthermore, there is no control as all employees have access to the paper sheets. This results in no oversight/visibility, no real security. Not to mention the various forms of disposal.
The Controlled Substance Tracking Challenges
Tracking Controlled Substance from cradle to grave with supporting documentation. Two factors of authentication via locks or software control. The documentation should be paperless meaning some form of software, preferably cloud based. Various forms of disposal that must have supported documentation. Lot number recall control with real-time inventory management. Expiration forward looking solution so there is enough time to manage medications and Controlled Substance well before they expire (ie; moved to location that does more volume so the goods are used before expiration or sent back under a manufacture buy-back program).
The Controlled Substance Tracking Solution
A paperless chain of custody software. Silent Partner Technologies cloud based intelliView solution which offers chain of custody including shift logs and run logs exceeds this mandate. The shift logs provide the supporting documentation for “hand offs” of Controlled Substance from one EMT leaving shift to another coming on shift. The run log provides the supporting documentation of Controlled Substance utilized and Controlled Substance “wasted” on a specific patient/run. Both shift log and run log support witnesses as well as pin logic instead of employee information.
The KNOX MedVault provides the hardware and manual secure, two forms of entry/authentication via locks, keypads and user logging via KNOX Connect software: tracks every time a vault is open and by who. Silent Partner Technologies provides the RFID components and the chain of custody tracking! This coupled with key information from knoxbox gives the end user a seamless integrated view of ALL pertinent data. The who, what, when and where are all captured in real time and digitally stored in a cloud based application that can be accessed from any device from anywhere in the world!
Alerts any time a vault is opened and if a medication moves.
Individual identification of each medication.
Controlled Substance stored on-site or in rescue vehicles in a locked vault reducing exposure to legal and regulatory sanctions. Drug diversion minimized by limiting access to those with authorized PIN codes. All access recorded in an audit trail providing accountability helping to protect a department’s inventory, medical registration and licensing. The image is a KNOX StationVault which is outfitted with RFID as well.
Controlled Substance Tracking Solution Flow Chart
The cloud based solution coupled with the mechanical interface and security of the KNOX vaults and the RFID components create a real-time Controlled Substance chain of custody solution. This solution checks all the boxes for DEA mandates and exceeds them! A true closed loop world class, best in breed enterprise solution that captures and stores ALL pertinent information digitally in real-time 24/7 365 as illustrated below.
Contact Us For more information or a demonstration of the Controlled Substance tracking & chain of custody as well as other features of the software which includes at no additional cost:
Asset Tracking
Inventory Tracking
GPS Tracking (of assets and inventory based on where the item was last “read” by a reader)
Checklists
Check in/out
Par Levels
Ordering (both internal and external from the application)
Shift Logs
Run Logs
Service Module
Calendar for scheduling
Reports (Standard, query based)
Report Writer (for building custom reports)
And more
Florida Dept of Health
Thank you for the examples of your system. It looks to be more than sufficient. As long as it is secure and can be easily tracked without room for tampering it should be fine. Which most of the commercial electronic systems take care of. Thank you for your attention in this matter. It makes all of our jobs easier when we work together and communicate.
