See Below

Deborah A. Sampson, PhD, APRN, COHN-S, FAANP

Director

Employee Health and Wellness Services

Southern New Hampshire Health   P.O.Box 2014   8 Prospect Street   Nashua, NH 03060

p(603) 281-8583  f (603) 577-5665

deborah.sampson@snhhealth.org

From: MCOH-EH [mailto:mcoh-eh-bounces@mylist.net] On Behalf Of Sumeet Batra
Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2016 4:54 PM
To: mcoh-eh@mylist.net
Subject: [MCOH-EH] Hospital Drug Diversion Programs

Hello all,

Higher-ups at my hospital are considering randomized drug testing in high risk departments (anesthesia, pharmacy, ED, ICU) to deter drug diversion.  There is particular interest in using a larger panel to catch drugs commonly used in these departments, such as fentanyl.  I am not sure if there is evidence to justify the cost and time involved with testing these employees but I wanted to see what members of the group are doing.

I would especially like to know:

A) If your program is doing random tests or only for-cause testing We Random test Hi risk groups (Anesthesia, Pharmacy and travelers/locums). We also have PIXIS audits monthly and test anyone whose audit for signing out controlled substances falls outside parameters.

B) What panel you’re using 22 panel I believe although we are considering going to a 30 panel

C)  If you’re doing testing in-house or at an outside facility (or a mix) We only do pre-employment UDS inhouse. Positive preemployment  and all other tests are sent out

D)  Any results or evidence from the medical literature that you may have. We have tracking evidence here but there is little in the literature last I looked (6 months ago).  

Thanks in advance,

Sumeet Batra, MD, MPH

Medical Director, Occupational Health Services

Cook Children’s Health Care System

Phone: (682) 885-1129

Fax: (682) 885-6717