Thorough Background Checks Create Safer Workplace

Advance for Respiratory Care Practitioners
By Stacey Miller

Harold Shipman, Efren Saldivar, Charles Cullen, Joan Wood Barnes. These four names were once just the names of people whom hospital patients indisputably trusted. After all, the job objectives of these four hospital employees (a doctor, two nurses and a respiratory therapist) were foremost to treat and to care for ill patients.

Yet all four reportedly failed that task, and they are now among alleged criminals either convicted of or charged with purposely putting their patients in harm's way.

Shipman, a physician, was convicted of killing more than 200 of his patients. Saldivar, a former RT, is now in prison on charges that he maliciously killed 50 patients in southern California. Cullen pleaded guilty to purposely killing some of his patients. He may be responsible for the deaths of about 50 people in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

And most recently, Barnes, a Philadelphia licensed practical nurse, was arrested in September for allegedly cutting the feeding tubes of six nursing home patients. None of those patients died as a result of that assault.

Stories like these certainly do not fit the classic anecdotes of health care employees. Unfortunately, as some hospital officials have learned, not all caregivers can be trusted to preserve and protect the lives of their patients. Consequently, employers are stepping up measures to prevent workplace violence and other crimes by scrupulously examining background records and employment histories of job candidates.

Nurse Cullen's case is a prime example as to why information sharing between hospitals is necessary.

A CBS News investigation, televised in April found that Cullen's employment résumé was full of red flags that no hospital caught. He was reprimanded for contaminating an IV bag at one hospital. He was investigated for a suspicious death at another hospital. One facility fired him for giving medications without doctor's orders. One hospital reported that he stockpiled lethal medications. Repeatedly, Cullen was removed from or voluntarily left hospitals where he was not welcome back for re-hire and branded as a "trouble" employee. Yet he continued to get work elsewhere as a nurse because none of his former employers spoke up about his past.

Looking to the Law

Employers are reluctant to share information with other companies about former employees out of fear of being sued if they paint an unflattering portrayal of the applicant, even if the disapproval is warranted and truthful, said Barry Nadell, president and co-founder of InfoLink Screening Services, a national background screening agency for employers based in Chatsworth, Calif.

"People think there is a law against saying something about a past employee," he explained. "There is not a law anywhere that says you cannot give truthful and honest information as long as that information was not provided with malice and forethought. You can always be truthful."

Unfortunately, the fly in the oatmeal is that companies still can get sued for telling the truth about employees, although lawsuits of that sort are far and few between. An effective measure to prevent workplace crimes would be a federal law to award employers immunity from lawsuits as long as those employers told the truth, even if it is unflattering information about a former employee, Nadell said. But no such law exists.

Some states, however, have passed legislation that gives companies protection from lawsuits in such cases.

As a result of Cullen's case, New Jersey's Senate Health and Human Services approved a bill in September that will require hospitals, when asked about a former employer, to report any problems during the previous seven years. If the full Senate passes the bill, current health care professionals would have to undergo criminal history checks when their licenses renew.

Employee Records

Of applicants applying for jobs with companies who used InfoLink services in the first six months of 2004, the following results were found:

• 8.4 percent had been convicted of felonies or misdemeanors;
• 40 percent had marks on their driving record (these include tickets, DUIs and drug possession);
• 3 percent tested positive for drugs;
• 5 percent provided invalid information about their education; and
• 24 percent had inconsistencies in information they supplied versus the information given by former employees.

For people applying strictly for health care jobs, there were fewer people with criminal histories (5 percent). Interestingly, 3.8 percent of job candidates supplied a phony or invalid Social Security number. This is nothing new, Nadell recalled.

InfoLink once did a search on someone applying for a hospital position. During the background check, they discovered the applicant had been convicted of two counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, one count of carrying an assault weapon and was reportedly in a state prison on a 37-year sentence.

After further investigation, InfoLink found the criminal was, in fact, behind bars. The job candidate apparently failed to do his homework before stealing someone's identity.

"There is no way that (the job applicant's) background could have been worse than that," Nadell said. "There are a lot of stories of people who are not actually who they say they are." The most common convictions discovered during background checks are spousal abuse, followed by theft.

Screening for Safety

Overall, thorough background checks are beneficial to the company's bottom line, saving both time and money.

Under negligent hiring liability, employers have a responsibility to look into an applicant's background to see if there is something that would put the public or other employees at risk. If they fail to do so, they put themselves high in the risk category. Employers rarely win lawsuits if an employee does harm because a firm failed to check a past history. On average, they shell out on average $1 million in plaintiff awards if their negligence is uncovered.

On the other side of the coin, past criminal history or not, everyone deserves the right to be employed. "We're not saying that if someone has been convicted of a crime, they shouldn't work," Nadell said. "We're saying that employers should just have that information to make intelligent decisions, because they may not want to hire someone who was convicted of theft last year and have that person be in charge of their cash register."

Doing background screenings in some states like California is difficult, because employers are allowed to inquire only about an applicant's convictions, not arrests.

But with health care and some other industries, it is a different ballgame, Nadell said. "In health care in California, if a person has access to patients, you have to find out about sex-related arrests. Also if they have access to drugs or medication, you can ask about any drug-related arrests."

Above all else, checks and screenings are done to protect the safety of the general public and other employees. One search InfoLink completed returned alarming results. A woman, who had applied to work for a home health care agency in northern California, had been convicted of burglary two years before.

The agency, obviously, did not place her; but three weeks later, the InfoLink researcher living in the same northern California town came upon the woman's name again. This time, it appeared in the local newspaper. The job candidate had been arrested for the kidnap and murder of a child.

Completing background checks is not the only critical matter for protecting other employees and the company, Nadell said. “Working with third-party agencies that understand the laws makes a major difference.

"There are both federal and state laws that surround background screenings," he said. "Employers should work with people who understand the laws inside and out, because unfortunately they can get sued," he added.

Further Resources

Nadell's recently released book titled Sleuthing 101: Background Checks and the Law is available in bookstores. For more information, visit InfoLink's Web sites at www.infolinkscreening.com, where you can find more information about employee screenings and InfoLink's services. At www.greathire.com, InfoLink provides employers seven simple suggestions as to how they can potentially prevent hiring a convicted criminal.