As I stated in Part 1, I will review the different drug diversion monitoring software solutions. I have spoken at length with three of the vendors and am in the process of connecting with the other three. My goal is to compare as best I can apples to apples, but I am finding it is not as straightforward as I thought.
The questions I will ask each vendor can be found below. If I get additional valuable information during the conversations, I will share that as well of course! However, one topic I may not be able to help with is price. I have heard some discrepancy on the topic. For example, I have heard a particular company is usually the most reasonably priced, but then I hear that same company quoted different vendors a much higher price. I suspect pricing will vary with the size of facility, the number of facilities, the comprehensiveness of solutions if more than one option is available, and quite frankly it might have something to do with what the vendor thinks the facility is willing to pay for drug diversion monitoring. Bottom line, it will most likely be up to you to get pricing quotes. If any of you would like to share numbers with me, I will be happy to include those examples here (excluding the name of your facility).
All of these solutions were recently introduced to the marketplace, and the vendors are constantly adding new features. It will be valuable for you to know what part of the medication pathway the drug diversion software covers, so that is one of the focus questions. There are also multiple risk factor assessments the software packages include in their algorithms. These too are constantly expanding, so an actual number may be hard to pin down, but there are some key things that a manual audit would be hard to incorporate, such as staff time and attendance. I’ll be reviewing some of those.
As I mentioned in Part 1, it is not enough to hear only from the vendor. You’ll be hearing from customers too. That will be a different set of questions!
Vendor Questions:
- The first year of implementation?
- The average facility IT manpower hours needed for implementation?
- The average time to complete implementation?
- How much training is included with implementation?
- After implementation phase, what support is provided?
- What part of the medication pathway is monitored for diversion?
- EMRs supported?
- Automated Dispensing Machines supported?
- Is software capable of integrating with infusion pump systems?
- Is data feed real time or working off archived data?
- If feed from EHR or ADM not transferring, will administrator at facility be notified there is an issue?
- If have a staff member who floats between facilities, can software search for their name over multiple facilities?
- Does product cover general nursing, perioperative, outpatient clinics, etc with consolidated reporting
- Does facility have the ability to combine nursing areas where nurses cross over and also look at units individually?
- Will reports be available at the system level as well as individual facility level?
- Is the app customizable?
- How many risk scores are there?
- Are the risks weighted or all considered equal?
- Does software have the capability to evaluate removals of other CNS depressants removed with CS meds?
- Does software have capability to monitor cancellation removals of non-CS along with CS removals?
- Does time/attendance get factored in with risks?
- Does system look for pain score anomalies ?
- How often are there automated software/patching updates?
- How is administrator notified of a potential issue? Does this happen automatically or does administrator need to login and review dashboard for activity?
- Does the installation process include confirming software would have identified past known diversion cases?
- Cloud based?
- Can software be accessed from any PC?
- How and for how long is data stored?
- Automated offsite data backups?
- HIPAA compliant?
