Kit Check is pulling data from its Bluesight™ for Controlled Substances platform on a quarterly basis to provide insight into the types of diversions and investigations that may be occurring in hospital pharmacies. The following information is as of June 30, 2020. Data was pulled from health systems across the United States.
Totals
Numbers based on Kit Check’s earliest data available.
- Cases: 11,627,581
- Cases automatically closed (no variance): 10,232,871 or 88%
- Cases with variance: 1,352,243 or 12%
- Cases with variances reviewed: 478,920
- Cases with variances reviewed, but unable to reconcile: 111,236
- Of the 12% of overall cases with a varience:
- 11% of cases involving an RN contained a variance
- 19% of cases involving an physician contained a variance
Top Drugs That Make Up Variances
- Fentanyl (23% of total)
- Midazolam (13%)
- Hydromorphone (12%)
- Morphine (11%)
- Lorazepam (9%)
- Oxycodone (7%)
- Acetaminophen-Hydrocodone (5%)
- Propofol (3%)
- Ketamine (3%)
- Tramadol (2%)
Investigations
Since April 2019, a total of 709 investigations have been opened. There are currently 52 hospital systems using the Bluesight investigations feature, averaging 14 investigations per customer.
Resolution Time
Investigations averaged 25.7 days from open to close.
Users Identified Who Have Stopped Working
To date, 3,438 employees who were designated as red/orange (indicating highly anomalous activity) in Bluesight’s Individual Risk Identification Score (IRIS) feature stopped working at that hospital.
Definitions
- Case – a dispense/administration of a controlled substance (and in some cases other non-controlled medications) with an accounting of any medication wasted or returned.
- Cases automatically closed – a controlled substance dispense that followed the expected patterns of administration and waste, allowing Bluesight to automatically close the case with a full account of the medication dose (no amount of the drug missing).
- Cases with variance – a controlled substance dispense followed by an unexpected pattern of administration and waste, allowing Bluesight to flag the case for manager (pharmacist or nurse manager) review as a variance (whole or partial amount of medication missing).
- Cases with variances reviewed – a flagged variance that a manager is able to manually close with more information.
- Cases with variances reviewed, but unable to reconcile – a dispense that remains a variance after manager review, elevating the transaction for more scrutiny.