Nursing Supervisor Accused of Diverting Oxycodone

In July 2022 the Washington State Nursing Commission and a registered nurse entered into an order that suspends the nurse’s credential. The nurse had withdrawn oxycodone for a patient who never received the pain medication, and a hospital audit found Hanson had withdrawn more oxycodone than other floor nurses even though she did not have individual patient responsibilities.

The Washington state Department of Health Nursing Commission indefinitely suspended the license of a registered Richland nurse for alleged misconduct on the job. She got her license in July 2013 and was working as a nurse supervisor at a local medical center around 2018-2019.

The nurse is accused of getting oxycodone and lying about giving it to a patient, according to the statement of charges from the DOH. In January 2019, she got oxycodone from a Pyxis machine, then reported giving it to a patient on his chart. The patient told another nurse that he hadn’t been given any pain medication.

This led to hospital management doing a pharmacy audit for November and December of 2018. As a supervisor, the nurse was not assigned individual patients, like other nurses. Despite this fact, the audit showed the nurse taking more oxycodone than any other nurse on the floor, according to the statement of charges.

When law enforcement asked the nurse about the incident, she reportedly admitted she had diverted the substances.

Based on those allegations, in December 2021 the DOH Nursing Commission accused the nurse of unprofessional conduct for possession of a controlled substance, appropriation of medication and violation of professional regulation.

In order to even petition to have her license reinstated, the nurse will have to enroll in the Washington Health Professional Services monitoring program until they say monitoring is no longer needed, according to the agreed order signed July 2022.