Vigilant helps protect hospital staff from opioid addiction by limiting their ability to divert drugs for illicit use. Poor control over post-patient narcotics waste in the hospital offers an abundant opioid supply for abusers. Our disposal platform improves waste controls while reducing the administrative burden on clinicians and pharmacists.
Fentanyl was the leading cause of opioid overdose deaths in the US in 2016 killing more than 20,000 people. Hospital staff have easy access to fentanyl, and as addicts, they compromise patient safety and place the hospital in regulatory and legal jeopardy. Accordingly, regulatory agencies mandate strict “chain of custody” controls for handling and documentation of these drugs. However, these processes impose a heavy administrative burden while leaving gaps in chain of custody control. The largest such gap is the post-patient narcotics waste stream.
Injectable opioids come in single-use vials and syringes large enough to cover common dosage ranges. The entire amount is rarely administered and the excess is disposed of. Two caregivers sign off to certify disposal: the administering caregiver and a spot-recruited witness. Since most opioids are clear fluids, the witness cannot visually verify the substance yet approves anyway. Diversion is easily committed by covertly substituting another clear fluid prior to the witnessed wasting.
DivertAlert™ is an automated single-user controlled substance wasting solution which replaces the human witness and verifies the composition and volume of each waste dose at the point of use. The device then destroys verified waste, thereby ending the chain of custody at the device. Unverified waste is securely sequestered and returned to the pharmacy for further investigation. This minimizes pharmacy returns while electronic record keeping ensures full traceability by dose.
The immediate payback is by reducing FTE’s who manually manage waste. The long-term payback is in reduced staff addiction.
