Controlled-substance inspections at veterinary hospitals uncover violations at 28 of 46 sites as big data identifies targets

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety found violations at 28 of 46 veterinary hospitals inspected for their handling of medical controlled substances. The violation rate reached 60%. Rather than conducting random visits, the inspection used an analysis of big data accumulated in the Narcotics Information Management System (NIMS) to identify hospitals with a high likelihood of violations in advance. The high violation rate demonstrates the precision of data-driven targeting.

NIMS is the world’s first end-to-end controlled-substance tracking system, established by South Korea in 2018. It was designed to require digital reporting of the entire process, from the manufacture, import and distribution of controlled substances to their prescription and disposal. The system has accumulated approximately 1 billion records to date, with about 130 million new handling records collected each year.

According to a 2023 study, the number of medical controlled-substance prescriptions in South Korea decreased by approximately 9.2% after NIMS was introduced. While oversight of human medical institutions has become more stringent, veterinary hospitals have had relatively lower surveillance intensity and have emerged as a new vulnerability.

According to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, veterinary hospitals can legally handle as many as 49 anesthetic and analgesic ingredients. Many are drugs with a high risk of misuse, including propofol, ketamine and fentanyl. However, requirements for verifying the identities of animal owners are relatively lax compared with those for human patients. In addition, a single veterinarian may handle the entire process—from purchasing and storing controlled substances to administering them—making external oversight virtually impossible.

There have already been cases of veterinarians diverting propofol and other drugs for outside use or selling them illegally. The Korean Association of Animal Pharmacies has pointed to these structural limitations and said fundamental improvements to the management system are needed, including the introduction of a system that fully separates prescribing and dispensing for veterinary medicines.

Based on the inspection results, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety plans to strengthen a 365-day continuous monitoring system through the AI-based integrated surveillance system K-NASS. The agency plans to use AI to reduce the time needed to detect anomalies from the 2 to 3 weeks required for manual analysis to within 3 days.

K-NASS is also expected to link NIMS data with data from other agencies, including immigration records and health insurance information. The system’s role is thus expanding beyond simple data collection toward predicting and preventing illegal misuse in advance.

Penalties are also expected to become more severe. If illegal diversion or intentional misuse is detected, the introduction of “punitive surcharges” beyond simple business suspensions is under consideration. Industry experts say the issue of controlled-substance management at veterinary hospitals will be difficult to resolve through short-term inspections alone and that structural institutional reforms, such as separating prescribing and dispensing, must be implemented concurrently to be effective. South Korea’s AI- and big data-based controlled-substance tracking model is also drawing attention as a policy reference for countries such as the United States and those in Europe that are struggling with the misuse of medical controlled substances.