Background Checks: How effective are they?
How effective are the background checks most employers conduct to
determine whether a potential employee might well qualify for sensitive
positions within their organizations? UNC Hospitals and the North
Carolina State Board of Nursing are now wondering just that, and perhaps
wondering how many present Nurses should not be qualified for the duties
they are now performing.
Both the State Nursing Board and the UNC Hospitals just became aware of
the fact that their background investigations failed to determine that a
state licensed RN, David R. Honeycutt, has not only a Naval service
history, but that his service history included a dishonorable discharge as
well as a Naval conviction for the sale of drugs and their use while
serving in the Navy. The background checks failed to discover other
questionable information concerning drug abuse and sales in more recent
times, including the distribution of medical drug samples while he was
still in the educational process of gaining a license to nurse in the
state. Part of the problem rests in the fact that many organizations
conduct background checks based upon information supplied by the
prospective employee, and if that potential employee leaves out critical
information, their checking processes will not pickup potentially vital
information. Additionally, the State Nursing Board only recently
established a semi-thorough requirement for background checks this year,
in January, after the September 11 2001 terror attacks:
CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECK
Requirements for licensure effective January 1, 2002
Effective JANUARY 1, 2002, applicants for initial licensure
in North Carolina must have a criminal background check.
The mandatory criminal background check applies to licensure
by examination and endorsement. It does not apply to
individuals who are renewing their North Carolina licenses.
http://www.ncbon.com/Lic-Bgcheck.asp
Note the shortcoming here in that the new policy only applies to "initial
licensure". This begs the question about how many licensed nurses in the
state might be ex drug offenders and criminals not qualified for some of
the duties RN's are supposed to conduct, including the handling and
dispensation of class A narcotics.
UNC Hospitals shortcoming in checking the backgrounds of staff under their
employ relates to their reliance upon other organizations such as the
State Nursing Board to preview the records of those they license as well
as, again relying upon the information supplied by the applicant, and only
conducting background checks for a short period of under 10 years. UNC's
head of Nursing Employment Office, Sandra Evan's related that the check on
the individual mentioned above went back to only 1993. The thoroughness of
the background check has to be questioned considering there is ample
information, easy to obtain, that suggests that Mr. Honeycutt has a long
history of drug related problems. None of this was disclosed or uncovered
in any of the background checks conducted by the State Nursing Board nor
any of the hospitals he has worked at in the past 3 years since being
granted a license to nurse in the state of North Carolina, including the
UNC hospitals, and the agency he contracts through to the UNC hospitals.
So, this begs the question; what good are back ground checks if they rely
primarily upon information supplied by applicants for sensitive positions
that would place them in positions critical to the health and welfare of
others? We've seen issues like this before, as when school bus drivers
with DWI convictions and suspended licenses to drive gained positions to
conduct school children to and from their schools. We are seeing an
increased issue of the problem with background checks and criminal history
as it pertains to the airline industry in recent months. This issue
becomes now more relevant, after the September 11 2001 terror attacks
upon the nation, and begs the need for a national background check
organization to be formed to avoid such issues of potential disaster across
the nation as well as in local communities.
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