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By: FEDweek StaffVA’s medical facilities maintain emergency caches of drugs and other medical supplies but their inventories are inaccurate in some cases and some items would be unusable, an IG report has said.
The report said that the program, started in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, is intended to keep supplies on hand to react to a local mass casualty event. The inventory across the 141 medical centers is valued at $44 million.
Auditors surveyed the managers of all emergency caches and conducted unannounced inspections at 26 locations. They found “expired, missing, or excess drugs, or a combination, at all 141 emergency caches. There were no required wall-to-wall inventories, and cache managers were not aware of the extent inventories were affected by expired, missing, or excess drugs. As a result of ineffective management, the mission ready status of the caches was impaired.”
The IG made recommendations including that that all emergency caches be thoroughly inventoried, that management processes be improved, and that the VA clarify oversight responsibilities. It further recommended that the VA identify drugs and supplies that can be used in the facilities’ general operations and assure that the facilities “are maximizing the use of the items before they expire.”
