Hire Safe Health Care—Special Services for Hospitals and Health Care Providers

ESR is pleased to announce a new service created expressly to serve the needs of hospitals and the Health care industry called Hire Safe Health Care.   Hospitals and health care providers have special needs and responsibilities when it comes to hiring health care workers. The health care industry  is particularly vulnerable to the legal and financial consequences of bad hiring decision.  There are special issues involving patient care, access to drugs and medicine, as well as other concerns unique to the health care industry.

In a study conducted in 1993, it was found that health care providers paid out over $100,000,000 in damages to victims, or their estates, as a result of injuries suffered a the  hands of health care employees with criminal records.  That is not a typographical error.  That is over one-hundred million dollars nationally.   The average settlement was almost $200,000.  In addition, health care facilities encountered the loss of trust of the pubic and staff, not to mention negative publicity and other problems.  And there is no reason to believe that the figures have gone down since 1993.  According to risk management authorities, as many as 5% of nurses aids for example have criminal records involving theft or violence. 

The real tragedy is that such violence and abuse is avoidable and fairly inexpensive to combat.  That is why sound risk-management practices in the health care industry includes a program of pre-employment screening of all new hires.  For less then the cost of an employee on just their first day on the job, ESR can institute   a background program allows a health care provider to exercise due diligence in the hiring process.

At ESR, we provide help to health care facilities to meet these special needs.  Some hospitals just need to check new hires to ensure they do not have criminal records.  But for the efforts of ESR, hospitals would have hired employees in sensitive positions with histories of drug abuse, drug sales or workplace violence.

Other health care providers have ESR provide a full range of services, including in-depth reference checks which include determining if a former employer was JAHCO and Medicare approved. 

As part of our services, ESR will access the List of Excluded Parties maintained by the Office of Inspector General.  Hospital hiring individuals on this list can face loss of federal monies, and other consequences.

Please contact ESR to discuss how we can assist your hospital or health care facility protect its hiring decisions.