When ensuring patient safety, healthcare facilities should never skip background checks. These screenings are essential for preventing bad hires that could harm patients or damage expensive equipment.
A national sex offender search is one of the most important checks hospitals should run on applicants. Sex crimes can put a doctor or nurse in danger of harming vulnerable patients and families.
Patient Safety
Patients, healthcare workers, and the public should never wonder if hospitals or other healthcare facilities are truly committed to patient safety. That’s why it’s so important to conduct background checks on all employees working with your patients.
When a healthcare facility skips background checks, they risk not only the safety of their staff and patients, but they could also face legal liability for negligence. This could include being sued for compensatory and punitive damages and paying court costs.
As an added benefit, recurring background check solutions offered by providers like Sterling Check allow healthcare facilities to ensure they are not hiring people with criminal histories. This helps ensure that they aren’t putting their patients or their organization’s reputation at risk.
Liability
Healthcare facilities have to take extra precautions to ensure their staff members aren’t putting patients at risk. This includes hiring employees who are qualified to perform their duties and have a background check.
Criminal law, civil law, or both can impose liability on businesses. You could be held liable if your company fails to conduct a background check on new employees and a negligent act is committed.
The type of liability a business may incur depends on its size and operation. Larger companies typically carry a variety of liabilities, while smaller organizations often have just one or two items that make up their non-current liabilities.
For example, long-term debt (also known as bonds payable) carries the largest non-current balances. These can include debts that have been issued by the company, like a mortgage or deferred compensation payments from employees who are retiring or transferring their jobs to family members.
Another common line item is post-employment benefits. These include any retirement or deferred compensation payments a former employee might have received and can also include severance or other payments that employees might receive as a part of an agreement with their employers.
Credit checks can help businesses determine if candidates are financially responsible and capable of handling the finances of their job. They also help employers make sure they are not bringing in a person with a criminal record or who might be a threat to their employees, their clients, or the general public.
Compliance
When you consider all the risks of hiring someone to work in a hospital, it’s no wonder why healthcare facilities should never skip background checks. These checks ensure they hire the right people and protect their patients.
Medical professionals need to be trained and certified, and they also need to have a clean criminal history. They should not have any crimes against them, and they should not have any past issues with drugs that could lead to legal complications in the future.
Drug screenings are a common part of any background check, but they have special weight in the medical industry. Nurses and doctors are in close contact with patients, and intoxicated employee can easily harm themselves and their coworkers.
In addition, nurses and doctors have access to prescriptions that can be abused by anyone addicted to drugs. This can cost your facility money in lost materials and can cause serious health problems for the person involved, so it’s important to have a drug screening policy in place that’s compliant with all laws.
Lastly, hospitals often run criminal history checks for violent or sex offenses. They want to make sure that they’re not hiring someone who could put themselves or their patients in danger, and they also don’t want to hire anyone with a criminal record who might steal from the hospital or its patients.
Reputation
Reputation is an important aspect of a healthcare facility’s operations. It helps ensure that patients receive quality care and are safe in their environment, so healthcare facilities should never skip background checks when hiring employees.
As a result, it is crucial to conduct background checks on all potential healthcare workers to avoid legal and financial liabilities. Not doing so could result in lawsuits, causing millions of dollars in damages to your business. It also can negatively impact your patients, who may look for a different healthcare provider when they need treatment.
Credentialing Issues
Healthcare facilities must always be concerned with hiring only qualified employees. This ensures that service capabilities and productivity are not compromised while ensuring patients receive safe and effective care.
The credentialing process is an essential step in the recruitment of medical practitioners. It thoroughly verifies a practitioner’s education qualifications, licensure, career history, training experience, and more.
Despite the safeguards in place, there are instances when mistakes, omissions, and misinformation can slip through the cracks. This leads to potential patient harm, accreditation issues, and legal problems for an institution.
These errors can also cause insurance companies to reject applications or deny claims, leading to cash-flow disasters for your facility. Fortunately, there are ways to minimize these issues and avoid them altogether.
