Bluesight's Annual Diversion Trends Report Highlights Important Role of Software and Staff Supervision in Controlled Substance Monitoring

2025 Diversion Trends Report provides analysis surrounding controlled substance transactions nationwide, reduced hospital variances, and improved investigations.

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 30, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Bluesight, the leader in hospital intelligence solutions, today released its 2025 Diversion Trends Report, a detailed analysis of the impact of software on the monitoring, prevention, and identification of controlled substance diversion in healthcare settings. The report analyzed data from over 1,100 hospitals and health systems nationwide, examining controlled substance transactions, and provides organizations with insights to enhance patient safety and documentation compliance.

Key highlights from the report include:

• Hospitals are leveraging diversion monitoring software to conduct more investigations, with a 61% increase in investigations from 2023 to 2024. In addition, diversion cases are now closing 40 days faster in year-over-year comparisons, prompting the growth of software tools and solutions.

• Fentanyl (24%) continues to be the top drug associated with variances, followed by Midazolam (15%) and Hydromorphone (10%).

• End-to-end, comprehensive diversion monitoring is working. The rate of variances in controlled substance transactions continues to decline, with only 6% of transactions reporting variances in 2024, suggesting overall improvements in documentation accuracy and compliance.

• Leveraging staff and technology to prevent diversion: Most hospitals and health systems rely on both diversion committees (67%) and software tools (53%) to detect and prevent diversion.

• The majority of confirmed drug diversion cases occur in nursing settings (67%), followed by Operating Room (OR) (30%) and Pharmacy (3%) settings.

The report found that diversion monitoring efforts continue to improve. While the overall number of variance investigations increased between 2023 and 2024 (61%), primarily driven by growth in the number of hospitals using software solutions, such as ControlCheck, investigation times are completed nearly 40 days faster than they were at the start of 2023.

Despite this expansion, the average number of variances per hospital has not increased, and the overall variance rate has continued to decline, suggesting that as more transactions are being monitored, a larger share is being accurately documented and auto-closed by software without requiring manual review. This is further supported by the Diversion Trends Report, which noted that over half (53%) of hospital staff overseeing diversion surveillance reported using software to detect discrepancies in documentation, monitor staff behavior, and investigate potential diversion cases. The report also highlights the top categories, drugs, settings, and staff roles associated with suspected and confirmed diversion.

"As drug diversion continues to be a critical issue for all healthcare facilities, this report shows that the use of software tools and automated monitoring can make a major impact," said Kevin MacDonald, Bluesight CEO and co-founder. "These tools provide surveillance and detection that can help to both confirm and prevent drug diversion across nursing, OR, inpatient pharmacy, and retail pharmacy operations, resulting in improved operational efficiency, regulatory compliance, and overall safety."

Report Methodology
The report analyzed data from Bluesight's ControlCheck solution throughout 2024 and, where applicable, includes trend data dating back to September 2018. The dataset comprises more than 266 million controlled substance transactions from over 1,100 hospitals and health systems nationwide. Additional insights are drawn from Bluesight's 2024 Hospital Pharmacy Operations Survey, conducted in February 2025, which collected responses from 159 pharmacy professionals -- 95 of whom are directly involved in diversion monitoring and prevention.

The full report can be found here

About Bluesight
Bluesight powers hospital operations with intelligence that simplifies inventory management, procurement, and compliance. Through its suite of industry-leading solutions, Bluesight ensures that health systems protect every patient and optimize every dollar. Over 2,400 United States and Canadian hospitals rely on Bluesight every day to have efficient and safe operations. For more information, please visit Bluesight's website.

SOURCE Bluesight