Trending
There is an obvious gap in the system that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania uses to make sure prescription-level painkillers aren't being abused, particularly, it appears, in rural areas.
Twice in less than a year the state Attorney General's Office has filed charges against two Warren County pharmacy employees who had found ways to manipulate systems in place to track painkillers ordered and used. In the case of Warren General Hospital's in-hospital pharmacy, the theft was uncovered when computer systems used to dispense medication led to an investigation that uncovered two years of small thefts of medication.
The situation revealed recently at the Sheffield Pharmacy shows just how important technological controls are – and why the state should make them a requirement in rural areas around the state. In that case, a pharmacy supervisor in charge of ordering and receiving medication is alleged to have diverted more than 90,000 hydrocodone and oxycodone tablets over more than six years. The pharmacy supervisor, according to affidavits filed by investigators, was as simple as ordering extra bottles of medication for herself, taking the medication and then altering paperwork to conceal the thefts. The thefts may have gone unnoticed were it not for an anonymous report to the State Police at Warren. Delivery records were kept in a three-ring binder with orders entered into a computer. It took months to audit the pharmacy records to determine exactly how much medication had been stolen.
The differences in the investigations show the need for state intervention, in our opinion. The ability to track medication at Warren General Hospital from receipt until the time it was given to a patient helped uncover painkiller theft and, in all likelihood, kept the amount of painkillers stolen to a relatively small amount. The ability to segregate ordering and delivery records at the smaller, more rural pharmacy made it possible for theft to take place for years, resulting in nearly 90,000 pills to be stolen – with no real idea where those pills went once they left the pharmacy.
There is no better solution to this problem than for additional checks and balances for all pharmacies dispensing prescription-level painkillers. We are hardly in favor of regulation. States have their hands in too many aspects of our lives, in our opinion, to suggest willy-nilly that the state should infringe on a private business' operation. But prescription painkillers require a prescription for a reason, and the fact that it was relatively easy to steal medication in Warren County twice in a year, coupled with the fact one of the thefts could still be going on were it not for an anonymous tip, shine a light on a gaping hole in the security chain when it comes to prescription drugs. That gap needs to be plugged.