STAT+: AI is good at catching drug theft at hospitals, but only when humans do their part

In late September 2024, a nurse at Adventist Health in Bakersfield, Calif., stole fentanyl and morphine from a secured cabinet and used them herself while documenting administration to patients, according to investigators from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Hospital managers ignored alerts from machine learning software designed to track drug theft, highlighting that AI is not foolproof in preventing such incidents.

In late September 2024, patients noticed a nurse at Adventist Health in Bakersfield, Calif., was acting strangely. The nurse was walking barefoot through the intensive care unit, talking to herself and acting abrasively toward others. Family members of patients noticed the nurse sloppily taking out IV needles but were afraid to confront her. “I know she was on something because you can tell,” one family member told federal investigators after the incident https://www.hospitalinspections.org/report-detail/QPNC11 . Another patient in the post-anesthesiology recovery unit treated by the same nurse was in excruciating pain under her care. “I was white knuckling it,” he said. “You’re not dying,” the nurse replied when the patient expressed his pain. He thought he was being given fentanyl and morphine, but the IV drip didn’t seem to help. That’s because the nurse, hired through a travel nursing agency several weeks before the incident, was taking the medications from a secured cabinet in the wing and using them herself, while documenting that they had been administered to patients, according to investigators from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services tasked with investigating a complaint about the incident in November 2024. The incident didn’t happen out of the blue. Hospital managers ignored alerts from a machine learning software that tracks when staff might be stealing drugs, auditors found. Hospitals are major repositories of addictive substances that can also be crucial medical treatments. Occasionally, employees steal those drugs and are under the influence while caring for patients. While new technologies are helping to identify theft and connect individuals with substance abuse resources, incidents like the one at Adventist show artificial intelligence isn’t foolproof. This article is exclusive to STAT+ subscribers Unlock this article — and get additional analysis of the technologies disrupting health care — by subscribing to STAT+. Already have an account? Log in /login/ View All Plans https://www.statnews.com/stat-plus/