July 2021
The following are several drug diversion news stories that have captured our industry’s attention.
Pittsburgh-area ex-doctor pleads guilty to drug, fraud charges
A former Hampton physician faces a lengthy prison sentence after pleading guilty in U.S. District Court to drug diversion, health care fraud, and money laundering charges related to his holistic medicine practice.
Acting U.S. Attorney Stephen R. Kaufman announced that Andrzej Kazimierz Zielke, 66, pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful dispensing and distributing Schedule II controlled substances, one count of health care fraud, and one count of money laundering.
Mississippi nurse practitioner charged with fraudulently writing drug prescriptions for her children, her parents, friends, 146 in total
A Mississippi nurse practitioner has been arrested as a result of an investigation into prescription drug fraud and theft.
Following a complaint, agents with the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, with assistance from the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Gulfport Tactical Diversion Unit, began investigating nurse practitioner Leslie Wilbourne, 46.
At the time of the complaint, Wilbourne was practicing at Maxem Health Urgent Care in Gulfport and Pascagoula. Miss. Wilbourne was reportedly prescribing Ambien, a Schedule IV controlled substance, to her adult children, mother, father, and friends. Wilbourne would then pick up the prescriptions for her personal use.
Ex-Attleboro woman gets 2 years’ probation in prescription fraud case
A former Attleboro woman charged with obtaining fraudulent painkiller prescriptions with information she got from a dental office where she worked was placed on two years’ probation.
Saskia R. Tyrone, 33, was an administrative assistant at New England Dental Specialists in Norwood where prosecutors say she obtained patient information from the computer system to obtain the prescriptions.
Overdose death of Kaweah Health contract employee leads to federal investigation
The overdose death of a Kaweah Health contract employee who stole drugs from the hospital for personal use led to a federal investigation that found the medical facility was deficient in managing its supply of narcotics.
During its investigation into the employee’s death, the hospital found a physician contracted with Kaweah Health also stole medication for personal use in a separate, unrelated incident.
Manhattan doctor sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for bribery and kickback scheme, and for distributing oxycodone and fentanyl for no legitimate medical purpose
Gordon Freeman was a doctor in New York who was charged with distributing oxycodone and fentanyl to a patient for no legitimate medical purpose. That patient ultimately died of a fentanyl overdose from drugs Freeman illegally prescribed him.
“Dr. Gordon Freedman, a prominent Manhattan physician, allowed his medical judgment to be corrupted by hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes that he accepted from Insys in return for prescribing Subsys, a potent fentanyl painkiller.” said Audrey Strauss, U.S. Attorney.
Former medical technician who infected 46 patients, including seven in Maryland, with hepatitis C is denied release
A former traveling medical technician who stole drugs and infected more than 40 patients with hepatitis C will remain in prison after a judge called his request for compassionate release “the least meritorious” he’d ever seen.
David Kwiatkowski was sentenced in 2013 to 39 years in prison for stealing painkillers and replacing them with saline-filled syringes tainted with his blood. Despite being fired numerous times over drug allegations, he had worked as a cardiac technologist in 18 hospitals in seven states before being hired in New Hampshire in 2011.
Feds: Florida ‘pill mill’ doctor pleads guilty, will forfeit 9 luxury cars, $400K
A Florida doctor pleaded guilty to three counts of controlled substance distribution and is facing up to 60 years in federal prison. Gerald Michael Abraham, 76, gave pills to patients for no legitimate medical reasons, according to the Department of Justice.
Officials said he was a licensed medical doctor in Naples who prescribed oxycodone to patients with obvious signs of addiction and Adderall to people he never examined. The DEA started its investigation in October 2019 after receiving a tip he was prescribing strong opioids to people who had no need for the medication.
Prosecutors: CT pharmacist forged prescriptions for 35,000 oxycodone pills
A former Lebanon resident was sentenced to spend three years in federal prison for forging prescriptions to acquire thousands of oxycodone and alprazolam pills from the pharmacy where he worked, according to prosecutors.
Eric Tingley, 45, who now lives in Hopkinton, RI, was sentenced by Judge Robert N. Chatigny in Hartford to 36 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.
Doctor, 5 others charged with allegedly prescribing $6.6M worth of opioids in distribution scheme
Six people from metro Detroit, including a doctor and the owners of a medical clinic, have been charged with conspiring to distribute prescription drugs.
Acting U.S. Attorney Saima Mohsin announced charges against six people who worked at Tranquility Wellness Center in Dearborn and then St. Clair Shores for allegedly dispensing a large number of prescription opioids to people who did not have a medical need for the drugs.
Former Amherst doctor sentenced for illegal prescribing and defrauding Medicare
A former Amherst doctor was sentenced for illegal prescribing and defrauding Medicare.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office says 43-year-old Gautam Arora, who was convicted of unlawfully acquiring controlled prescriptions by misrepresentation and fraud, and scheming to defraud a health care benefit program, was sentenced to 14 months in prison.
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Utilizing advanced technology in hospitals
The healthcare sector is generally slower to adopt newer technologies than other industries, yet innovation is still happening at an astounding speed.
According to Mark Siska, chief pharmacy informatics officer at the Mayo Clinic, the deployment of newer technologies cannot disrupt the healthcare infrastructure in the same way we see with other businesses.
Patients and healthcare providers have yet to be convinced about interacting solely through digital means. Given the many risks that can often lead to patient harm, the value for human support remains high. Additionally, data security, patient privacy, and the unique needs in the hospital setting continue to be vulnerabilities emerging from the digital transformation in healthcare and why hospitals and healthcare organizations are wary of investing in new technology. Unless they feel 100% sure that the technology will work, they may take a wait and see approach.
At Mayo Clinic, Siska leads the adoption and implementation of medication management supporting technologies. He has been a leading proponent for the use of advanced technologies across the medication use process continuum. He believes that utilizing new technology can not only improve patient safety and outcomes, but also allow providers to work at the top of their license by reducing unnecessary clerical and administrative burden. An area within a health system that can significantly benefit from the use of advanced technologies is drug diversion and prevention.
“Drug diversion results in substantial risk not only to the individual who is diverting the drugs, but also to patients, co-workers, and employers,” he mentioned.
Some hospitals have limited approaches and capacity for preventing drug diversion. Before artificial intelligence (AI) and multi-dimensional surveillance systems, detecting drug diversion was time consuming and resulted in several investigations that were simply opportunities for practice improvements. With constant changes occurring within a health system and the medication use process, creating a digital, end-to-end footprint of where medications are continues to be a challenge.
To accurately monitor drug diversion, health systems and hospitals need to pull data from multiple sources. With so much information coming in from different areas of use, differentiating true diversion from a quality improvement opportunity can be difficult. Utilizing AI and more sophisticated drug diversion detection systems can relieve some of the pressure put on institutions. Innovations in machine-learning algorithms enable facilities to:
- Easily capture and analyze data
- Rapidly identify and prevent drug diversion
- Precisely pinpoint areas that need process improvement
According to Health Informatics, 90% of healthcare systems are now capable of churning out big data, yet only a small percentage can use it enterprise-wide to achieve their goals. AI gives hospitals immediate access to large data, enabling organizations to not only proactively keep patients from harm, but also protect their reputation within the communities they serve.
“A health system and hospital’s top priority is to improve care for patients,” noted Siska. “Incorporating new advances in health systems can ensure that hospitals achieve its mission.”
