A Rochester, New York, nurse licensed as both a registered professional nurse and a licensed practical nurse was charged by the New York State Education Department with diverting narcotics for her own use. According to the Regents summary, she obtained morphine and/or Dilaudid by making fraudulent entries in an automated dispensing cabinet, using patient identification numbers to record the withdrawals.
The summary states that in several of these cases there was no physician order authorizing administration of the narcotics to the patients whose identifiers were used. The published record does not describe the facility or the specific audit or report that surfaced the discrepancies.
The nurse admitted to the charge and resolved the matter through a consent order granted by the Board of Regents on November 9, 2001. The agreed penalty was a suspension for a minimum of six months and until terminated under the terms of the consent order, followed by two years of probation to begin upon her return to practice, plus a $500 fine. The action was recorded against both of her licenses.