A former medical case management coordinator at Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Health pleaded guilty to tampering with prescription medications.
Shelbi Wolken, 35, of Wheat Ridge, Colo., pleaded guilty to one count of tampering with a consumer product, according to a March 12 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Colorado.
Prosecutors said Ms. Wolken used her access to EHRs and patients’ personal identifying information to pick up prescriptions that did not belong to her. Officials at Intermountain Health discovered in July 2024 that Ms. Wolken had used a patient’s information to obtain a prescription for oxycodone at the in-house pharmacy at Saint Joseph Hospital in Denver, replacing the stolen medication with loratadine, an over-the-counter allergy drug.
The scheme extended beyond a single incident, according to the plea agreement. Investigators found that Ms. Wolken picked up about 139 prescriptions belonging to roughly 127 patients between December 2023 and July 2024. She replaced the stolen medications with common over-the-counter drugs, including ibuprofen, aspirin, acetaminophen and loratadine.
During the investigation, Ms. Wolken admitted she was addicted to opiates, prosecutors said. Several patients whose prescriptions were tampered with reported significant pain and postsurgical complications after unknowingly receiving the wrong medication.
U.S. District Judge Nina Y. Wang presided over the hearing. Sentencing is scheduled for June 10.
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