ATLANTA (PRWEB)
February 26, 2020

Invistics, the leading provider of cloud-based software solutions that improve inventory visibility and analytics across complex healthcare systems and global supply chains, has released a new study on the state of drug diversion in America. Conducted by Porter Research, the results reveal that nearly all healthcare professionals agree that drug diversion is occurring across the country, yet almost half of the professionals who participated in the research still don’t have drug diversion detection programs.

The term drug diversion refers to crimes that involve a prescription medication – this includes drug-seeking behaviors, corrupt prescribing practices and the theft of drugs by healthcare workers. Nearly all survey respondents believe that drug diversion negatively impacts quality of care, has an adverse impact on patient safety and jeopardizes compliance, putting their organizations at risk. At the same time, almost two-thirds say they are only “somewhat confident” in the effectiveness of their organization’s drug diversion program.

“Drug diversion is a tricky issue in today’s healthcare industry. In comparing this year’s survey with the survey results from two years ago, we hoped to find that more progress was being made toward early detection and prevention. Unfortunately, that was not that case,” said Cynthia Porter, CEO of Porter Research. “Too much has stayed the same – over 40 percent of the healthcare facilities represented in this survey still do not have drug diversion programs. Of those with diversion programs, many are still not highly confident in the efficacy and efficiency of their programs.”

Key findings:

• Nine in ten surveyed say they believe their facility’s drug diversion program is the same or even better than other organizations, and two out of three are confident or very confident that their drug diversion program successfully identifies employees that divert drugs; yet, 70 percent of participants said they believe most diversion incidents in the U.S. go undetected.
• When asked to rate their confidence levels on a scale of 1-5 (with 5 being very confident), slightly less than half (47 percent) said they are very confident that the drug diversion program at their facility meets audit requirements for DEA, Board of Pharmacy and Joint Commission.
• A vast majority (86 percent) have met or know someone who has diverted drugs, and 43 percent feel their organization could be at risk from fines, bad press, lawsuits or overdoses due to past or potential drug diversion at their facility.
• Survey respondents are losing confidence in traditional drug diversion detection methods. In the last two years, the percentage of respondents who said ADC reports are effective or very effective at the identification and/or prevention of drug diversion dropped from 78 percent to 52 percent.
• The survey found that healthcare professionals recognize the value of machine learning and advanced analytics solutions. Sixty-five percent say that machine learning software is an effective tool to uncover drug diversion and 84 percent think advanced analytics solutions are effective.

“Despite the awareness of the issue, drug diversion is notoriously difficult to detect,” said Tom Knight, CEO of Invistics. “It’s exciting to see that healthcare executives who want to create stronger drug diversion programs recognize that emerging technologies like advanced analytics and machine learning can help them achieve more accurate, timely results.”

See the full report at https://invistics.com/2020-healthcare-diversion-survey/

Survey Methodology

235 healthcare professionals were surveyed in October and November 2019, 138 of whom have a diversion program at their healthcare facility. Survey participants included directors of pharmacy, nursing executives, compliance executives and drug diversion specialists. Porter Research completed this study on behalf of Invistics.

About Invistics

Invistics is the leading provider of cloud-based software solutions for healthcare inventory visibility, providing advanced analytics and actionable insights for hospitals and health systems who want to detect and prevent drug diversion. Invistics’ solution, called Flowlytics®, tracks the movement of drugs across the complex supply chain – from the time they are shipped from the wholesaler to a healthcare facility, then each time drugs are moved throughout the hospital and administered to patients. Atlanta-based Invistics Corporation also provides inventory visibility for manufacturers, distributors, re-packagers and controlled substance registrants, helping to reduce inventory costs and compliance risks within a single facility or across the extended enterprise. To learn more, visit http://www.invistics.com.

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WASHINGTON (PRWEB)
February 26, 2020

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently announced the selection of two Members of Congress to be seated on the Gallaudet University Board of Trustees as public (Congressional) members: Donna E. Shalala of Florida and Larry D. Bucshon, M.D. of Indiana.

During the Clinton administration, Ms. Shalala served as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees and administers the work of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). At the time of the creation of the NIDCD in 1988, Deaf people requested that the word “Other” not be used in the title of the new institute (https://bit.ly/2SRlnVH), but their request was disregarded. The NIDCD was, to a large extent, simply a continuation of the work that had been going on for many years under the “communicative disorders” program of the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), but it served as a showcase vehicle for Sen. Tom Harkin, who had an ambitious political agenda. Over the years since the creation of the NIDCD, tens of millions of federal dollars have been spent on research relating to cochlear implants (https://bit.ly/2SVFP85). As a US Senator, Hillary Clinton had been a member of the Congressional Hearing Health Caucus (https://bit.ly/39LxKt5), which strongly promoted the development and use of cochlear implants (https://bit.ly/2P09ZWz). It was expected that Ms. Clinton would have also strongly promoted their use, had she become US President. From 2015 to 2017, Ms. Shalala served as President and CEO of the Clinton Foundation.

Sen. Harkin also spearheaded the funding and establishment of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the early 1990s and has been accused of promoting pseudoscience (https://bit.ly/2V5yJAB). Prior to the eruption of the Deaf President Now protest in March 1988, then-Senator Harkin had been looking for a way to get a “disability rights” bill passed in Congress. The Deaf President Now (DPN) movement was demonstrably *not* part of the disability rights movement (https://bit.ly/2vCSC7p), and did not grow out of such, yet after the DPN protest victory, and after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the newly appointed deaf president, I. King Jordan, developed a friendly relationship with Senator Harkin (https://bit.ly/2SPzkUd). Jordan’s rhetoric then shifted gradually over the ensuing years to a disability frame. This led to the creation of the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) in 1995, with him (the new deaf president of Gallaudet University) being a co-founder (https://bit.ly/2PkDmTt).

In 1988, the new (Eighth) Jordan Administration had begun with the assistance of an advisor to the president who previously worked together with the president as “assistant dean” when he was dean (https://bit.ly/2SQ5TRN). That assistant dean possessed a doctoral degree from Union Institute & University – a doctoral degree for which no dissertation was required – arguably indicating unfitness to serve as advisor in a doctoral-degree-granting university. In April 2000, the Eighth president unilaterally appointed a (later, very controversial) provost who then misrepresented the Deaf education research literature in an article in the New York Times, in reference to signing vs. oral methods, claiming: “No studies exist showing that one method works better than another” (https://bit.ly/2HtGrMD). Another professor was appointed by Jordan to a high profile position within the Administration, purportedly working on improvements in equity, and that professor also possessed a degree from Union Institute & University with no dissertation being required (https://bit.ly/37y9WaO) – all this demonstrating a clear trend toward overall administrative incompetence – leading inexorably to political debacle when the Eighth president supported that provost in becoming his successor, and that provost making pseudoscientific claims, misunderstanding the nature of American Sign Language and not understanding why it is a bona fide, autonomous language (https://bit.ly/2Pl1iGe).

While current Gallaudet president Bobbi Cordano chose to complete a JD degree (with no dissertation required), instead of an SJD, which requires a dissertation and is research-oriented, and while there were governance irregularities (http://bit.ly/2SSRLZn) at the beginning of a seven-year chain of events that eventually led to her appointment, suggesting the hidden hand of Senator Harkin being in play (http://bit.ly/3bVCZbE), it is often the case in life that “the exception proves the rule.” With the exception of the president of the board of the alumni association (http://bit.ly/395DWMA), which is an elected office and falls outside of her purview, Cordano, in the opinion of Student Unity Movement, has been engaged in an extensive process of “cleaning house” and surrounding herself with thoroughly qualified people (http://bit.ly/2w2F3Os).

Student Unity Movement applauds the forward progress being demonstrated by the Cordano Administration, and looks forward to a long and productive tenure for the current Gallaudet president. Further, Student Unity Movement calls on Speaker Pelosi to keep close tabs on the new trustee appointees, while keeping in mind that Gallaudet is an institution of higher learning, not a medical rehabilitation agency, and therefore trustee appointments done with a pro-cochlear-implant (i.e., pro-Auditory Industrial Complex-backed Congressional campaign funding) mentality are not only wholly inappropriate, but are reckless, risking the well being of the students involved.

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