Healthcare hiring managers should take a lesson from the skilled nursing facility industry, which just got slammed by a new OIG report on criminal convictions among employees. OIG researchers found that a stunning 92 percent of SNFs have hired employees who've been convicted of a crime. The OIG calculates that more than 5 percent of SNF employees, in total, have convictions on their records.
But it's not just the SNF industry that struggles on this front. Engineer Keith D. Little, an employee with Suburban Hospital in Maryland, was indicted on Monday for allegedly stabbing his supervisor to death on hospital grounds. Hospital officials told the local Washington Examiner that he had been charged with murder (although not convicted) in 2003, and had several assault convictions on his record, none of which showed up in his background check.
In another, even more complicated example, Dr. Cleveland Enmon of St. Joseph's Medical Center in Stockton, Calif., was charged, then cleared of stealing a Rolex watch from a dying patient. Only weeks after beating the charges, though, it was discovered he had a criminal record, including a charge of alcohol-related reckless driving.
The OIG report does state that most of the convictions it found were for property-related crimes such as burglary or writing bad checks.
For more:
- here's the OIG report
- read the Washington Examiner article
- read the Record Net article