Ask any diversion prevention specialist what keeps them up at night, and you’ll rarely hear “we don’t have enough software.” You’re more likely to hear about the case that almost slipped through, the pattern that only made sense once a trained analyst looked at it, or the new tactic a diverting employee used that no algorithm had been trained to flag yet.
That’s the uncomfortable truth at the center of every serious diversion program: no single tool, system, program, or person can catch 100% of diversion. Not the most sophisticated software. Not the most experienced investigator. The organizations that manage diversion risk most effectively are the ones that stop looking for a silver bullet and instead build a strategy where technology, processes, and people reinforce each other.
Why technology alone isn’t enough
Modern diversion monitoring software has transformed what’s possible: surfacing patterns across thousands of transactions that no human could track manually, flagging anomalies in real time, and creating an audit trail that used to take hours to assemble by hand. But software has real limits:
- It can only analyze the data it has access to. Diversion that happens outside a system’s visibility – during the waste process, in undocumented workarounds, or through methods a platform wasn’t built to detect – can be missed entirely.
- It generates leads, not verdicts. An anomaly (IRIS) score or flagged transaction tells you where to look, not what actually happened. Someone still has to investigate, interpret context, and make a judgment call.
- Diversion tactics evolve. As soon as staff who divert learn what triggers a flag, some will adapt their behavior. A static system that isn’t paired with people who understand emerging tactics will eventually fall behind.
Why people alone aren’t enough
On the flip side, even the most experienced diversion coordinator or pharmacist can’t manually reconcile tens of thousands of medication transactions across every ADC, EHR, wholesaler feed, and vault in a health system. Relying purely on manual chart review and spot audits means:
- Investigations start after diversion has likely already occurred, rather than being caught early
- High-risk behavior can go unnoticed simply because no one happened to be looking at the right report at the right time
- Teams spend the bulk of their time on data-gathering and reconciliation instead of the actual investigative and clinical work that requires human judgment
The strategy that actually works: technology + trained people, together
The organizations that see the strongest diversion outcomes don’t treat technology and staff expertise as competing approaches. They build a program where each compensates for the other’s blind spots. Technology narrows an ocean of transactions down to a manageable, prioritized worklist. People bring the clinical judgment, investigative skill, and evolving tactical knowledge needed to act on it correctly.
This is the philosophy behind ControlCheck, Bluesight’s drug diversion monitoring and detection platform.
As Bluesight CEO Kevin MacDonald explains, “ControlCheck is highly accurate at surfacing early indicators of potential diversion, but it can’t act on them for the hospital. That takes people… reviewing and following through on the highest risk signals.”
What ControlCheck brings to the table
ControlCheck connects data from ADCs, EHRs, wholesalers, and controlled substance vaults to perform closed-loop dose reconciliation – tracing every dispense through to its corresponding administration, waste, or return. That automation alone auto-reconciles a large majority (upwards of 95%) of transactions, freeing diversion teams to focus their limited time on the discrepancies that actually warrant a closer look.
Beyond reconciliation, the platform’s Individual Risk Identification Score (IRIS) analyzes staff behavior against peers in similar roles and care areas, then prioritizes a worklist so investigators know where diversion is most likely to be happening, rather than reviewing everyone equally. When a case does warrant investigation, ControlCheck centralizes evidence collection, checklists, notes, and multidisciplinary collaboration in one place, so confirming or closing a case doesn’t require piecing information together across five different systems.
None of that replaces human judgment. It’s designed to make human judgment more targeted and effective.
What trained people bring to the table
Software can tell a team where to look. It takes trained staff to know what they’re looking at and what to do about it. That’s why a comprehensive diversion strategy has to include real investment in people, not just a platform login. A few ways to build that investment:
- Ongoing, role-specific training. Not everyone needs the same level of depth. Some staff need to know how to use the application day to day, others need in-depth analytics training, and administrators need to know how to manage and configure it. Offering that training in multiple formats (live sessions, self-paced eLearning, webinars) means it actually fits into busy schedules instead of getting skipped.
- Clinical, not just technical, training. Knowing how to click through a system is different from knowing what a pattern in the data actually means. Training led by pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and drug diversion analysts helps staff move from “I know how to use the system” to “I know what this data is telling me and what to do next.”
- Peer learning and case-based practice. Programs like the Diversion Collective give end users a place to network with peers facing the same challenges, learn how to configure a platform around their own internal policies, build investigative skills, and walk through live, de-identified case reviews – seeing exactly how experienced analysts turn data into a confirmed (or closed) case.
- Continuous engagement with the broader field. Diversion tactics don’t stand still, and neither should a diversion program. Staying connected through community forums, a diversion-focused symposium, and ongoing best-practice sharing keeps teams current on tactics and countermeasures they wouldn’t necessarily encounter on their own.
The bottom line
Diversion detection isn’t a problem you solve once with the right software purchase, and it isn’t a problem you solve purely through vigilant staff. It’s an ongoing discipline that requires both: technology that can surface risk across a scale no person could manually track, and people who are continually trained to interpret that risk correctly and act on it.
Organizations that invest in only one half of that equation will always have a gap. Organizations that invest in both – a platform like ControlCheck paired with a genuine commitment to ongoing staff training and community learning – build a diversion program that gets stronger over time instead of standing still while the risks evolve around it.
Want to see how ControlCheck and Bluesight’s training programs work together in practice? Request a demo to learn more.