Tools & Strategies News

Drug Diversion Monitoring Solutions Largely Beneficial for Providers

A new report examining providers’ experiences with drug diversion monitoring vendors found that these services helped organizations identify educational opportunities and improve diversion detection.

an orange pill bottle laying on its side, pouring white pills onto a light blue background

Source: Getty Images

By Shania Kennedy

- A new report from KLAS Research found that healthcare organizations reported better transaction pattern identification, drug diversion detection, and overall efficiency when utilizing drug detection monitoring services from eight popular vendors: Kit Check, Protenus, BD, Medacist, HelioMetrics, Invistics, Imprivata, and Omnicell.

The report outlines providers’ experiences with these vendors and their products, in addition to insights from each provider about how well their chosen vendor helps them achieve drug diversion monitoring outcomes.

The report evaluated responses from nearly 30 providers related to each company's culture, loyalty, operations, product, relationship, and value. This data was gathered through a combination of KLAS’ standard quantitative evaluation for healthcare software, which is composed of 16 numeric rating questions and four yes or no questions, and supplemental questions tailored for the drug diversion monitoring market.

The data gathered in the standard evaluation was weighted equally for analysis and translated into overall performance scores, which could range from zero to 100.

Kit Check achieved an overall score of 87.2, with 27 organizations giving it a B for culture, A for loyalty, B+ for operations, B for product, B+ for relationship, and B+ for value. Over 10 of the 23 organizations that provided outcomes data reported that the company’s products helped them achieve actionable insights through reporting, improved diversion detection, and identification of educational opportunities and bad practices. Despite this, a few organizations stated that they felt nickel-and-dimed by a product that they believe is too expensive.

Protenus scored 87.9, with 15 organizations giving it a B+ for culture, A- for loyalty, B for operations, B+ for product, A- for relationship, and A for value. Customer-reported outcomes data for Protenus is limited, but some customers stated that the customer support team is proactive and helpful, and the product provides easy-to-understand explanations of the metrics and deviations brought to users' attention. In contrast, others noted that the tool is cost-prohibitive and requires a more robust training experience than currently offered.

BD scored 75.8, with 17 organizations giving it a C- for culture, B- for loyalty, C+ for operations, C for product, B- for relationship, and C for value. A majority of BD’s customers reported that the company’s offerings helped them achieve outcomes related to improved workflows, comprehensive data aggregation, and actionable insights through reporting. However, some customers complained of a lack of proactive guidance, training, and best practices around product utilization.

Medacist scored 60.3, with 17 organizations giving it D+ for culture, F for loyalty, D+ for operations, D- for product, C for relationship, and D+ for value. Customer-reported outcome data is limited for Medacist, as few have adopted its products outside its initial group of customers, which are holdovers from when Medacist’s RxAuditor was the first and only drug diversion monitoring product on the market. Seventy-two percent of the report’s respondents state that they use RxAuditor, and all but one plan to switch to another vendor’s solutions.

HelioMetrics, Invistics, Imprivata, and Omnicell all had insufficient or limited data in some areas, so their performance scores are less comprehensive. Based on the available data, HelioMetrics scored 84, Invistics scored 80.3, Imprivata scored 70.1, and Omnicell scored 60 overall.

KLAS Research has also analyzed providers’ impressions of vendors in other healthcare markets, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Earlier this month, KLAS Research found that most healthcare organizations reported better and faster processes, improved clinician and patient experience, and reduced costs while using Amazon Web Services (AWS). The report also highlighted these customers’ perceptions of AWS competitors Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Cloud.

Compared to AWS, Google Cloud was largely deemed not comprehensive enough for the customer needs, and Microsoft Cloud was labeled as slower and more confusing.