Healthcare Compliance Perspective:
Deliberately dispensing an incorrect medication, strength, or dosage is a form of abuse and fraud. Misappropriating medications that have been prescribed for residents either through substitution of the other drugs or stealing unused narcotic drugs is theft. The Compliance Officer is responsible to ensure that appropriate policies and procedures are in place regarding the distribution and proper disposal of unused drugs. Furthermore, staff need to be educated about the importance of compliance regarding medication distribution.
A former nurse is in custody and two others are bein
g sought by police in a hospital home health and hospice program’s 5-year-old felony drug diversion case. The nurses are charged with stealing drugs intended for hospice patients during an almost two-year period. The charges are the result of an investigation by a Drug Enforcement Agency that began in September 2014 although the alleged crimes began in December 2012.
The two former nurses still being sought are also charged with endangering the life of patient. These charges accuse the two with giving a patient a less potent form of morphine instead of the prescribed stronger drug-hydro morphine. Another hospice nurse reported that one nurse had told her about her part in the scheme, and that the thefts had started after the death of a patient she and the other nurse had cared for. She said that the two took the deceased patient’s left-over medications for their own consumption.
Both of the nurses still being sought by police surrendered their nursing licenses voluntarily in 2014 to the Board of Nursing. They had been reported, were being investigated and had admitted guilt in the accusations.
The hospital launched an investigation into the medical and pharmacy records of 104 patients through the efforts of a supervisor and the pharmacy director. The investigation turned up numerous instances of “drug diversions” and drug thefts by one or both of those nurses and some also involved the nurse the police had arrested and who was free on the signed promise that she will appear in district court.
All three of the former nurses are charged with a Class C felony for theft of property and conspiring to steal drugs, and the two nurses still unaccounted for are both charged with a Class B felony offense for endangering a vulnerable adult. The police captain handling the case indicated some of the details and questions may never be determined.
