When hiring healthcare workers, you have a responsibility to your organization and the patients you serve to conduct appropriate and thorough healthcare background screenings. The medical industry holds a trusted position in society because human lives are at stake, and professionalism is the watchword at all levels of employment in this sector.
Whether you are the owner, CEO, or HR manager at your organization, you have a vested interest in maintaining the highest possible standards for the recruitment screening process. After all, the health and welfare of individuals under your care depends to a large extent on the quality of the people that you employ.
Indeed, criminal background checks for nurses and physicians are important processes that no healthcare organization would consider skipping. For example, you have to stay on top of healthcare sanctions screening, to avoid bringing onboard a worker who has been found to be in violation of the law or administrative regulations.
Due to the complex nature of completing background checks for hospital employment, most organizations use third-party companies to help them in this regard, to make sure they are operating in a “legally permissible way,” as noted by the University of Washington Department of Family Medicine’s report on Background Checks and the Health Workforce.
What follows are four common mistakes that organizations make when doing healthcare background screenings, for you to keep top of mind:
1. Insufficient Criminal Background Checks
Imagine if you somehow neglected to conduct a nursing criminal background check, and later, this nurse harmed someone or otherwise committed a crime while in your employ. Alternatively, consider the consequences of hiring a worker without first conducting a healthcare sanctions screening that could reveal fraud or abuse.
The results can be very difficult to address, potentially leading to lawsuits and a public relations disaster. You risk patients staying away from your facility because of the lack of duty of care. Using a third-party service, you will have authoritative background information to help inform the personnel additions you’ve needed to fill, to show they have a clean record.
2. Skipping Education Verification
Part of the background check results you consult during the hiring process will be to learn what medical school the individual attended and when. Medical positions require a high level of training and experience through accredited institutions. That’s for the safety of everyone involved, from patients to personnel.
Without dependable medical license verification, you don’t really know who you’re hiring. If someone has lied about their educational background, you have to wonder what else they might be deceitful about while on the job.
Each candidate must have a solid medical education. Do not take a person’s resume at face value when processing a verification of medical education. Failing to verify the details of a person’s attendance at an academic institution could come back to bite you.
3. Checking Employment History
Before considering hiring potential healthcare workers, you must remember to double-check their employment history. In a professional background check for hospital employment, the relevant prior experience is a major factor that goes into making a hiring decision.
4. Health Screening for Health Workers
Make sure that you do all required health screenings, such as making sure that workers have received all needed vaccinations and that they are ready for work. The CDC has a list of vaccinations and screenings recommended for all staff before hire, such as a TB screening of healthcare workers. Of course, a healthcare background screening includes drug screening. Employees who are addicted to dangerous narcotics pose a severe risk to medical institutions.
KarmaCheck: Your Healthcare Screening Solution
To maintain the reputation and capabilities of your healthcare organization, you have to pay close attention to each member of your team, especially during the early stages of the recruitment process.
Trust KarmaCheck to conduct thorough and fast background checks to give you greater peace of mind.
