Employees with access to medications at Maryland's hospital for the criminally insane were also keeping the inventories, an arrangement with enough potential for theft to raise red flags for state auditors.
A report released Thursday by the state Office of Legislative Audits found no drug shortages at the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center. But it did find 7,162 doses of medicine, valued at about $64,000, that were returned to the pharmacy without being re-entered in the pharmacy's inventory. The hospital had not investigated the reasons for the excess.
Auditors said it was the second time they have found such problems at the hospital.
A response from state Health Secretary John M. Colmers said that since February, drug inventory records at Perkins have been kept by the hospital's finance department. The pharmacy staff maintains routine access to the drugs. Hospital officials were consulting with other state agencies on how to further improve controls on drug supplies.
The Perkins center, in Jessup, provides psychiatric evaluation and treatment for more than 200 inmates. The new audit covers the hospital's operations from July 2006 through August 2009.
Among their other findings, auditors said Perkins failed to verify the correct pay rates for pharmacy personnel services totaling $806,000; failed to follow proper procedures for reporting contracts for $82,000 in emergency psychiatric services; and failed to verify proper pricing on the $1.8 million in pharmaceuticals it purchased from a distributor in fiscal year 2009.
Auditors also found that hundreds of pieces of equipment at Perkins were not on the hospital's inventory lists.
"As a result, equipment items could be misappropriated and not readily detected by center management," the audit said.
The hospital said it is continuing to address the issues raised by the audit.