Comprehensive Workplace and Employment Drug Testing

Prescription Drug Abuse

The abuse of drugs and alcohol among health care workers endangers their own well-being and compromises the health and safety of the patients they serve. The consequences of that abuse can range from disruptive and problematic to tragic when patients are injured or die as a result of a health professional’s impairment. Health professionals who work in care-delivery settings may have access to controlled substances not routinely available in other workplace settings. The incidence of drug and alcohol abuse among healthcare professionals is certainly as high as the general workforce population because of the inherent stress associated with the occupation and the increased access to controlled substances.

PeaceHealth Laboratories offers a broad-spectrum panel for health care professionals as well employers outside the health care industry who suspect prescription drug abuse in their workplace. The Health Professionals Panel detects ten (10) opiates / opioids as well as ten (10) commonly abused drugs including benzodiazepines, alcohol, barbiturates, cocaine, propoxyphene, methadone, and marijuana.

Specimen Type

For information on specimen types, click here.

More Information

For details on services and fees or to schedule an inservice or appointment, call PeaceHealth Laboratories Drug Testing Client Services.

For medical drug screening outside a legal, employment or forensic context, see our PtProtect Pain Management Panel.

Drugs of Abuse: Protecting the Employee, Protecting the Employer

PeaceHealth Laboratories goal is to identify workplace drug use without ever prompting a false accusation. The initial drug screen includes a wide range of individual drugs involved in drug-abuse situations. If the initial immunoassay screen test is positive, PeaceHealth Laboratories confirms the positive test by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), considered the highest forensic standard for confirmation because of its sensitivity and specificity. When alcohol is part of the test request, the specimen is initially screened by an enzymatic method and, when positive, confirmed by gas chromatography.

To avoid the potentially serious consequences of false-positive results, our testing and specimen collection procedures are specifically designed to ensure scientifically defensible testing coupled with rapid turnaround time. With PeaceHealth Laboratories GC/MS confirmative testing, proper collection, transportation and reporting procedures, false-positive test results do not occur.

Our protocols include specimen validity testing for sample adulteration detection. The tests performed at PeaceHealth Laboratories also differentiate between passive marijuana exposure and active use and distinguish legal over-the-counter decongestant drugs from illicit D-methamphetamine.

Point-of-Care Testing

PeaceHealth Laboratories does not recommend the use of point-of-care testing devices. For more information, click here.


PeaceHealth Laboratories