Compliance Perspective – Background Checks:
The Compliance Officer should review the facility’s policies and procedures with the Administrator, Human Resource Director and the Compliance Committee to ensure that the facility is maintaining a background investigation policy for new and current staff in accordance with state and federal laws. Such staff includes employees, Medical Director, consultants, contractors, volunteers, caregivers providing care on behalf of the facility and students or interns. In dealing with issues such as this, the facility builds trust and enhances client relationships by being open and transparent about the issue and providing opportunities for the questions and concerns of the families and residents to be expressed and answered. Staff will be educated on the facility’s process for performing background checks, and should they become aware of a conviction or finding that may disqualify them from providing services, they must notify the Human Resources Department. The Compliance Officer should periodically request that administrative staff perform an audit of all staff to ensure that no employee has a criminal background.
Nursing homes and other healthcare providers are supposed to obtain background checks on prospective employees to prevent the hiring of someone who may have been convicted of a felony. However, in July, a Colorado television station aired a program about the beating of an elderly Alzheimer’s resident living in a nursing home by a caregiver who is a convicted felon and is now facing arrest for th
ose charges.
The nursing home did not provide an explanation about how the now-former caregiver accused in the beating was hired with a felony criminal record that included drugs and assault. The facility, supposedly, had done a background check on her before she was hired. The nursing home’s response to the television presentation was to organize and host an “open forum” for the residents and their families to allow the issue to be discussed and to provide answers to questions and concerns.
The company that owns the nursing home’s CEO attended the forum and responded to the many questions and concerns expressed by the families there.
At the forum, the facility provided a letter to those attending that explained what the facility was doing to ensure that this type of issue does not reoccur. A portion of that letter read as follows: “When it was discovered that our existing background check service failed to capture important criminal background information, we … immediately vetted, and began using, a new background check resource; started running all active staff through the new background check system to search for any information missed by the prior service and will take appropriate action on any new data divulged.”
The letter also included the fact that “the facility is re-training ‘key management staff’ on the new system.”
The family of the resident who was assaulted is pursuing litigation against the nursing home.
