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Drug diversion by healthcare personnel poses substantial and growing risks to patients, staff, healthcare institutions and the community, the author reports. It is essential that clinical, pharmacy, and security personnel work together on diversion-related issues to reduce those risks, she says. In this article she spells out the critical roles of security personnel in the investigation of suspected diversion and the response to confirmed diversion.

The healthcare industry is especially susceptible to internal fraud and employee theft, the author's research has found. He presents details of 14 costly healthcare embezzlements that took place in three months and gives insight into schemes employed on the most common types of embezzlement. He also describes proactive steps which can be taken to prevent, detect and respond to this phenomenon as well as providing a primer on conducting an internal theft investigation.

The robbery of an employee on her way to work may be a more common occurrence in some hospitals, but it was a rarity for a hospital in Western Colorado. In this article, the author describes how Security, working with Facilities Management, sought the root causes of the incident, and the steps that were taken to remove those factors that made it possible.

Drug diversion has become a $100 billion a year problem for the healthcare industry. By far the leading source of such diversion is the obtaining of prescription drugs by bogus patients from ER staff, the author claims. Solving the problem will not be easy, he says, because drug seekers are experts in avoiding detection or in persuading health providers to supply them with the pharmaceuticals they want. But, he adds, a program for reducing such diversion in your health facility can be successful if a multi-disciplinary approach is taken. Such a program is described in this article.

How a healthcare security department has undertaken a program to prevent employees, patients, and visitors from becoming victims of Identity Theft as well as providing help for victims of this crime in mitigating their losses. An Identity Theft affidavit for ID theft victims is illustrated.

How one hospital (designed with multiple entrances intended to ease traffic flow, rather than prevent unauthorized entry) assessed and improved its physical security and loss prevention programs while it upgraded its supply chain controls.

Using security management to demonstrate performance improvement for JCAHO can be a viable option. The article illustrates how a program for reducing theft became the basis for demonstrating performance improvement.

Following a recent increase in reported theft, embezzlement, and pilferage in the storage and production areas of the hospital's Nutrition & Food Services, department, the protective service department, in cooperation with the NFS director, conducted a survey of overall security systems and staff awareness as well as specific vulnerabilities to theft which required correction.

Maintenance Department employees can be your friends and allies or the source of your biggest headaches. By working with maintenance personnel, the securing of maintenance areas can be made a lot easier.

What should healthcare facility security directors and administrators do when patients or employees are the victims of identity theft? Taking the right steps to safeguard personal data won't insulate your facility from ever having to deal with this growing crime but, says the author, it will reduce the opportunity and desire for a criminal to steal the data.

The author discusses three types of investigations the healthcare security officer may be concerned with--employee theft, homicide and violent crimes, and fraud. He examines the role of the investigator as puzzle solver and the steps that need to be taken to put all the pieces of the puzzle in place.

The article discusses the difference between abuse and fraud, the cost of fraud to a business, how fraud is accomplished, and ways to combat long distance fraud.

Against a backdrop of escalating levels of violence, vandalism, and theft within UK hospitals, the National Health Service is under pressure to improve security on its premises. The author looks at the cure for this critical situation.

The use of traditional audit approaches, such as those employed by the accounting profession, frequently fail to uncover losses or the causes of such losses in an operation such as hospital linen. In this article, the authors describe a different type of audit, called Investigative Auditing, and relate how it was used at one institution to uncover a serious theft problem and recommend better techniques.

In the past few years, a number of hospitals and nursing homes have come up with communication programs that have been effective in reducing loses as well as improving relations with employees, patients, visitors, and residents. This article describes a number of these programs.

Some schemes--designed to steal your facility's revenue and/or property--that you should be aware of. They could cost you millions.