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With the cost of replacing a wheelchair estimated at $500 to $700, hospitals are eager to make it more difficult for would-be thieves to steal this piece of essential equipment. In this report, we will describe the steps several hospitals are taking to prevent wheelchair theft and the devices available to make such theft more difficult. A wheelchair inventory control form is also included.
The authors describe a quantitative analysis method to investigate narcotic theft or tampering on a nursing unit. It provides procedure to follow after any suspected tampering or outright theft of controlled substances. Several methods to review all current controlled substance activity for a given nursing unit and their possible relations to the loss are described. In addition several working documents are described to aid in the analysis of the loss.
Theft and drug diversion by employees from hospital pharmacies pose increasing security concerns for institutions as evidenced by the indictment in May 1996 by an Onondaga County, Syracuse, NY, grand jury of four men--one an associate hospital pharmacy director--on charges relating to the theft and resale of more than $3 million in prescription drugs from two Syracuse hospitals over an eight-year period. The drugs were used to treat cancer patients. In this report, we'll give you in-depth details of what was stolen and how it was stolen. We'll present some advice from experts on how to prevent your hospital from becoming vulnerable to such large-scale losses. And we'll give you insight into a vast black market that may indicate that what took place at the two Syracuse hospitals may not be an isolated occurrence.
A number of Florida hospitals report they have fallen prey to thieves who are dressing as hospital workers or service company employees and stealing expensive medical equipment. The thefts are creating both financial loss to hospitals and the danger that some lifesaving equipment will be missing when needed. More than 50 hospitals have been hit over the past 18 months, says Jim Kendig, incoming president of the Florida Society for Healthcare Security and Safety Professionals, Orlando. Are these thefts the tip of the iceberg? Logic dictates they are taking place or will take place elsewhere, since there is nothing different security-wise or equipment-wise about Florida hospitals compared to those in the rest of the country that would limit criminals to one state. Therefore, the lessons learned by Florida hospitals, as detailed in this report, are worth heeding elsewhere.
Fraud examiners and investigators say that employee theft is out of control, citing recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce figures that employees steal approximately $400 billion from businesses each year and an Ernst & Young survey showing that nearly 90% of organizations countrywide experienced some type of fraud in the 12 months prior to the survey. An additional undetermined amount is being reported lost because of external fraud committed by customers, vendors, and others having contact with a company or institution. Fraud experts interviewed for this report note that all sectors are targets--including retailers, hospitals and healthcare, the hotel industry, schools, and college campuses. In this report, we'll present the how's and whys of this development and also describe what one medical center is doing to stop thefts of medical equipment and computers.
We report a retrospective study examining the prevalence, demographic profile and pattern of psychiatric morbidity of theft offenders remanded for psychiatric assessment by the Singapore courts. Case records of 100 male and 100 female consecutively remanded theft offenders were reviewed. There was a high rate of psychopathology, with schizophrenia as the commonest disorder. Sex differences were identified in demographic profiles, psychiatric diagnoses, types of offences committed and likely psychiatric determinants of the offence. Depression was more common in females while substance abuse and antisocial personality disorder were diagnosed more frequently in males.
The paper presents a case report of a serial but from the social point of view rather inconspicuous theft offender. The motivation of this perpetrator cannot be reduced to a simple money-making-intention. It seems to be of a more complex origin which offers possibilities for a psychological interpretation. On the other hand, this offender does clearly not fulfill the criteria of kleptomania. For such cases, Anglo-American literature offers a new concept named the "atypical theft offender" ATO, witch is outlined and critically discussed by the author.
At Capital Health System/Fuld Campus (formerly Helene Fuld Medical Center), the Health Sciences Library lost many books and videocassettes. These materials were listed in the catalog but were missing when staff went to the shelves. The hospital had experienced a downsizing of staff, a reorganization, and a merger. When the library staff did an inventory, $10,000 worth of materials were found to be missing. We corrected the situation through a series of steps that we believe will help other libraries control their theft. Through regularly scheduling inventories, monitoring items, advertising, and using specific security measures, we have successfully controlled the library theft. The January 2002 inventory resulted in meeting our goal of zero missing books and videocassettes. We work to maintain that goal.
Electromagnetic anti-theft devices in shops comprise large diameter magnetic induction coils between which the shoppers pass. This study was undertaken with a simulator to assess the behaviour of different models of single and double-chamber pacemakers when exposed to 6 stereotyped and repetitive situations of 4 different electromagnetic anti-theft devices. Of the 35 pacemakers tested, 25 developed serious dysfunctions: 14 long-lasting inhibitions (over 3 seconds), 2 stimulations at maximal frequency, 2 electrical bradycardias and 2 permanent reprogramming. These dysfunctions due to electromagnetic interference are observed in old or modern, monopolar or bipolar pacemakers, and seem to be influenced by the amplitude and complexity of the signals emitted by the detectors. These observations justify a clear signalization warning pacemaker patients of a potential danger.
Anhydrous ammonia, a colorless gas with a pungent, suffocating fumes, is used primarily as an agricultural fertilizer and industrial refrigerant. Anhydrous ammonia is also a key ingredient for illicit methamphetamine (meth) production in makeshift laboratories. Exposure to anhydrous ammonia can be immediately dangerous to life or health. Anhydrous ammonia generally is not available for sale to the public; states require a license for purchase. Because of this, many illicit meth producers (i.e., "cookers") resort to stealing anhydrous ammonia. If released into the environment, anhydrous ammonia can cause acute injuries to emergency responders, the public, and the cookers themselves. In addition, when handled improperly, anhydrous ammonia can be explosive and deadly. This report describes examples of anhydrous ammonia thefts associated with illicit meth production, summarizes ammonia theft events reported to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), and suggests injury prevention recommendations, such as installing valve locks or fencing on unattended tanks and donning appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) when responding to releases.
We used an A-B-A design to evaluate the effects of two commonly used promotional activities-price reduction and increased exposure, in combination and separately-on sales and thefts of candy at a grocery store. The combination of activities and the increased exposure condition produced the greatest increases in sales. The combination of activities was also associated with the greatest increase in thefts.
Because hospitals often have large amounts of capital expenditures, they are particularly vulnerable to massive fraudulent schemes. Sometimes, the perpetrators are top-level executives, chief financial officers, or board members working in conjunction with outside contractors and suppliers. The losses can be devastating as witnessed by the recent uncovering of "Operation Catscam"--a large-scale x-ray scam, involving phony invoices, kickbacks, and outright theft of supplies, that operated for 14 years and bilked hospitals in New York and New Jersey out of at least $10 million. This report will detail recent incidences of massive hospital fraud: how the crimes were committed, how they were detected, the amount of loss involved, and procedures the institutions later put in place to prevent such thefts from recurring. In addition, we'll offer tips from investigative experts on how the security department can involve itself in helping to spot fraud early in the game and how to proceed with an in-house investigation.
Thefts without motive of pain have been known since the early 19th century. But the problem has not been solved. While they were formerly considered a mental disease, today they are not seen as something special. But they still happen. Only a small percentage of common shop-lifting can be called a psycholopathologic syndrome. Many explanations and analyses have been published which are discussed in detail. In a group described here comprehensively difficult marital situations full of conflict, marital sexual frustration, depression, physical and mental exhaustion and aggressive and suicidal tendencies are found. Theft appears to be closely connected with these. But the pattern of motivation and causation is by no means stereo-typed. In order to clear up such actions one will have to consider as exactly as possible the biographic connection and what happens during the act - quite apart from somatic conditions. Present assessment in reports is totally unsatisfactory. To clear up the controversial questions is urgently necessary.
Nowdays, it is common seen that criminals tend to use the lock-against-theft for motorcycle to harm others as a tool. In order to find out the chief characters of this kind of injury, 28 cases in which victims were hurt by lock-against-theft for motorcycle were analyzed. In each case, the victims carefully questioned to confirm the damage procedure. Furthermore, the wound configuration was observed and the forming mechanism was deduced to provide morphological evidences for the judgement in this kind of case.
Occurrences of panic attacks associated with belief in genital retraction have been described in the anthropological and psychological literature in terms of culture bound reactive syndromes. Similar phenomena occur widely in West Africa, where they are reported as cases of penis snatching. Explanations for these phenomena range from the biomedical emphasis on pathology to the social psychological emphasis on altered perceptual sets. This paper provides a narrative of an accusation of genital theft in a rural West African settlement. Drawing from ethnographic information, it will be argued that the case is best explained in light of social relations, definitions for in-groups and out-groups, and local knowledge concerning witchcraft and divination. Local explanations for the case conform to both biomedical and social psychological models.
This paper examines the value of data published by the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) on the collision frequency of different automobile models as a potential guide to vehicle safety. It is argued that these data fail to control for factors other than design, including vehicle usage and driving quality. An alternative measure of collision risk, controlled for some of these factors, is constructed employing the fact that theft risk is determined by many of the same usage characteristics as collision risk. This alternative measure is validated by demonstrating that it is a more effective predictor of injury risk than collision frequency. In conclusion it is argued that if HLDI collision data are to provide a more useful guide to the relative design safety of different automobile models, the data need to be controlled for a wider range of potentially confounding factors.
To several African nations, the access to international sovereignity has been concomittant with a crisis of values: the pressure of urbanization and industrialization have caused deep frustrations and called for a number of painful adjustments. To sample a measure of the changes that are still in process we asked 950 Senegalese secondary school students to comment upon their attitudes towards the rampant criminality, (particularly theft and murder) in their young nation. Three-quarters of answers were in favour of greater severity, but the remainder advocated tolerance, a sign that the traditional unanimity against criminality is now over.
A revolution has occurred in the attitude of biologists toward their intellectual property rights. What today is patentable and highly profitable was, 20 years ago, unpatentable and given away for nothing. The history of this revolution began in the early 1960s when we made the first effort to have self-duplicating cell strains patented. The application was denied because patent law at that time did not include living matter. Because of the demand for our normal human diploid cell strain, WI-38, by NIH grantees, NIH support was provided to distribute WI-38 gratis to hundreds of recipients. These included vaccine and cell manufacturers who profited enormously from the direct sale of WI-38 or its use as a substrate for many human virus vaccines. When federal support for the distribution of WI-38 ended, but demand did not, I continued to distribute it for costs similar to those made by the American Type Culture Collection. When I took the first initiative and asked NIH to have the then unique question of title to a self-duplicating system resolved, they sent an accountant who accused me of theft of government property. I replied with a lawsuit that, after six years of litigation, we won with an out-of-court settlement. During these six years the United States Supreme Court ruled that living matter could be patented. Also, the biotechnology industry was launched by biologists who, like me, started companies using cells or microorganisms developed with federal support. This use of intellectual property rights by the nascent biotechnology industry was ultimately embraced by the entire biological community and by a directive from the President of the United States. This revolution has now evolved to the point where government biologists themselves may profit from research in federal laboratories, and the NIH itself aggressively seeks private commercial alliances. Universities have also pursued similar alliances to the extent that today the distinction between a research university and a commercial organization is only in the eyes of the Internal Revenue Service.