Drug Diversion Monitoring: Energy High around AI

Over the last several years, the opioid crisis has become a household discussion as government agencies have increased efforts to build awareness of and prevent further deaths from controlled substance abuse. As part of this effort, drug diversion monitoring is critical for healthcare organizations trying to improve patient safety, prevent drug waste and misuse, and comply with laws and regulations enforced by the DEA. KLAS recently published the 2023 update on the drug diversion monitoring market, focusing on vendor performance and available functionality, including advanced capabilities that are being further developed.

High Energy around New Functionality and AI

The drug diversion monitoring market is not new; solutions have been around for over 20 years and are well established in healthcare organizations’ workflows. In the last several years, though, technology has advanced, and we are continuing to see the development of functionality and growth in the market. Since the 2022 report, there have been three main drivers of change in the market: (1) functionality advancement, (2) customer adoption, (3) and market consolidation through vendor acquisition. The report touches on all three drivers. See below for a glimpse into the market’s functionality advancement by showing customer satisfaction with the delivery of new technology and the ability of AI and machine learning to improve effectiveness. 

AI is a hot topic throughout many industries, and some drug diversion monitoring vendors are diving fully into these advanced capabilities. Customers want that to continue as they see a lot of potential benefits with AI improving the accuracy of risk predictions and noncompliance detection. While energy is high around these new functionalities, the core of a product still needs to be focused on the outcome of finding diversion, and vendors should make sure their messages are aligned with what the customers need.

Integration Remains Difficult across the Market

Customers are seeing gaps in integration widely across the drug diversion monitoring market. Most data sources are capable of integrating with these solutions, but many health organizations may not have the necessary resources with the expertise to build the workflows and integration and properly use the data sets in their work. 

While staffing continues to be a problem across healthcare, vendors and healthcare organizations need to work hand in hand to increase efficiencies and integrations with what is available. Vendors need to continue to improve their solutions’ capabilities and connect with various data sources while also ensuring they are clearly communicating about best practices. Healthcare organizations need to be vigilant when evaluating solutions to understand how their organization wants to use the data and make sure that the vendor has experience with and integration capabilities for necessary data sources. 

For another possible partner in this endeavor, there is an emerging trend of healthcare organizations partnering with services firms to help establish and run drug diversion programs, including firms such as Rxpert Solutions, Trexin Consulting, and Visante. We are excited to continue to monitor interest in these services. Read the report to see more information on how specific vendors are performing with and advancing their integration.

Where Is the Market Going?

As the market moves forward, we will likely see the continued development of automation and AI in drug diversion monitoring solutions. As energy remains high and as more customers continue to adopt new technologies, KLAS will continue to measure the development and performance of such tools to evaluate how AI is changing the market. Moving forward, healthcare organizations should consider creating drug diversion monitoring committees, if they don’t have one already, to monitor their broader efforts to contain any theft or misuse of controlled substances. Vendors and healthcare organizations can work together to minimize the impact of controlled substance abuse.

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