POCATELLO — There’s no limit to the projects that Bengal Solutions can take on.

From consulting established local businesses such as ON Semiconductor and Idaho National Laboratory to helping prospective entrepreneurs develop strategic marketing plans before embarking on their business ventures, Bengal Solutions has had its hands in many local endeavors over the years.

Now, Bengal Solutions — which is a part of both Idaho State University’s College of Business and the Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Development — is tackling a pair of projects that can impact Eastern Idaho for many years to come.

Dr. Gary Cook is an anesthesiologist by trade. Over the course of his long and storied career, he’s developed an ability to detect drug diversion — or the illegal distribution and abuse of prescription drugs intended for patient use — by health care professionals in health care settings.

The malpractice, Cook says, is more common than people might think.

“Drug diversion is actually pretty pervasive,” Cook said. “The reality is that it occurs in all areas of the hospital.”

Cook had a business idea he thinks can help hospitals. So he approached Bengal Solutions director Dr. Dan Cravens, and the Bengal Solutions team got to work.

The team is developing a business and marketing plan for Cook. Also, one of the Bengal Solutions team members, Hassan Afzal, is developing proprietary software-based technology that can be used to detect drug diversion in real time in health care settings.

In Cook’s proposed business, the drug diversion detection would start with anesthesia in the operating room. If pain-relieving narcotics that typically present in anesthesia are absent, Afzal’s program will be able to spot it.

“That’s a controlled environment,” Cook said. “We feel we can identify some of the responses the patient will have to those narcotics being withheld a little more easily. ... Ultimately, we plan to expand to all areas.”

Another project Bengal Solutions is currently working on involves Mark Stephensen, southeast area field officer for the Idaho Office of Emergency Management.

The Working Group on Utah Earthquake Probabilities — which was established by the Utah Geological Survey and the U.S. Geological Survey — released a study last year that indicated Southeast Idaho and northern Utah had a 57 percent probability of being hit by a magntitude-6.0 earthquake in the next 50 years.

With that information, Stephensen is planning this spring on presenting to several Southeast Idaho county officials what can happen if a devastating earthquake occurs and how to properly respond to it.

He enlisted Bengal Solutions to help accomplish that task.

Cravens’ team is developing a response that — in the event of an earthquake — would help mitigate losses or interruptions in services provided by businesses and governments. Part of forming that response is understanding the structural and economic consequences of such a catastrophe.

“We need more data to be able to demonstrate to not only elected officials, but to FEMA as well and other agencies to take a look at this,” Stephensen said. “... It’s a necessary understanding of what the threat is and then what we can do to navigate that threat and becoming more intuitive to what the potential losses are — how it can guide people or compel them to be more proactive.”

Two projects — one in health care and one in geology. Neither field aligns with the studies of a student in ISU’s College of Business.

But that isn’t keeping Bengal Solutions from anything. With help and partnering from other colleges and units at ISU, Cravens’ team takes information, analyzes it and forms cohesive, strategic business plans.

“It’s taking research and data and applying that to developing plans and strategies to address situations and problems,” Cravens said. “Even though we are not seismologists here, we are not geologists at the College of Business, we are individuals who can take that kind of data and try to solve problems with it.”

Between assessing what the damage would be in various Southeast Idaho communities to studying the consequences an earthquake would have on those communities’ respective economies, Bengal Solutions is helping Stephensen explain how crippling a catastrophic natural event could be if the proper precautions are not taken.