• 15
  • March
    2011

According to a recent Department of Health and Human Services report, the vast majority of nursing homes in the United States hire employees with criminal convictions. The report says that over 90 percent of nursing homes have employees with criminal backgrounds on staff. Federal investigators working for the Inspector General for Health and Human Services ran background checks on all nursing home workers employed on June 1, 2009. The report's statistic was created based on the mass background check.

The statistics gathered from the report are especially crucial as elder abuse and nursing home negligence gain more attention in the media. More media attention has been garnered thanks to a recent Senate hearing where 90-year-old, actor Mickey Rooney testified about his own experience with chronic elder abuse.

Currently, there is a patchwork system of nursing home background checks since state law is not uniform in identifying relevant crimes. The report shows that 98 percent of nursing homes conducted some form of a background check. The problem is that few states require nursing homes to conduct background checks outside of their state. The majority of states, 43, require nursing homes to conduct background checks but only ten states require an FBI background check that identifies convictions in multiple states.

Even if a criminal background check is completed, criminal databases are not entirely reliable. One district attorney from Massachusetts says that while criminal background checks are essential, thorough reference checks should also be completed. The overall point of background and reference checks is to measure the character of the worker who will be working in close contact with a vulnerable population.

Source: CBSnews.com, "Over 90 percent of nursing homes hire criminals," Laura Strickler, 3/2/11