Drug Diversion Research Paper

Drug diversion is a criminal activity that harms patients, institutions, staff members, the community, and the diverters themselves. Institutions have a duty to provide a safe environment in which the risk of diversion is kept to a minimum. Thus institutions must have policies and procedures in place to prevent, detect, and respond to diversion, and the policies and procedures must be followed consistently and without prejudice. In the United States in 2010, nearly 4 billion retail prescriptions were filled, with sales totaling $307 billion. The medication most often prescribed, 131.2 million times, was the opioid hydrocodone combined with acetaminophen. The opioid oxycodone combined with acetaminophen was prescribed31.9 million times. Although most of these resulted …show more content…
There are many patterns of drug diversion in the health care facility workplace environment, involving personnel from diverse backgrounds engaged in diversions in a variety of practice locations. The heterogeneity of drug diversion practices is exemplified in the following cases detected at Mayo clinic medical centers during 2010 and 2011. The most common drugs diverted from the health care facility setting are Opiods. Although other high- value drugs such as antiretroviral drugs, athletic performance- enhancing drugs, and non-opiod psychotropic drug that have been diverted from health care facility workplace, To ensuing discussion focuses on the theft of controlled substances defined as medications classified as Schedules II (i.e., substances with high potential for abuse) through V(i.e., substances with lower potential for abuse than substances in schedule II, III,IV). Through this study, I also learn that drug diversion also cause addiction. Addiction is sometimes viewed as a victimless crime. When the addiction is supported by drug diversion within the health care facility