The Problem
A Paper Log Tells You What Someone Wrote Down
Newport Beach ran its controlled substance counts the way most departments
still do: a paper log on each unit, signed at shift change, collected and
filed. It worked until somebody needed to know something the log could not
tell them.
Which units had not signed yet this morning? Nobody knew without calling
each station. Where was a specific vial right now, and who had handled it
since it came off the shelf? That answer lived in a stack of binders. And
the department's signature rules were not simple. Different unit types
carried different drug boxes, with different count and witness requirements
for each. Every vendor they asked wanted to flatten those rules into one
generic checklist. Newport Beach did not want to rewrite its procedure to
fit a piece of software.
The risk was not that the counts were wrong. It was that a late signature or
a missing witness was only discovered days later, when the paper reached the
narcotics administrator, and by then the shift that could have fixed it had
gone home.