Employment screenings determine whether existing or new hires can perform their tasks successfully as well as evaluating any substance abuse issues. In the healthcare industry, pre-employment hospitals background checks are imperative to ensure a safe workplace. Routine alcohol and drug screening is vital as the staff is directly associated with the safety and well-being of patients. Additionally, those involved in the logistics department carrying medicines, medical devices, patients, and others to and from the hospitals must undertake regular drug and substance abuse screening.
What is Employment Screening?
Employment screening is a medical test an employee must undertake when asked by an employer or authority. Hospital authorities might ask a candidate to take employment screening during the process of a job application or after accepting a job offer. Depending on the state and the particular responsibilities of the job role, one will be asked to undertake the health screening. Background screening is necessary to rule out any criminal records, verify the employee’s identity, and verify their license or certificate credentials.
Common Types of Employment Screening
Different types of employment screenings in hospital background checks include:
- Drug or illegal substance abuse and alcohol test
- Routine physical assessment
- Heart health assessment
- Psychological examination
- Assessing past criminal records
- Verifying the identity of candidates
- Verifying the claimed qualifications and licenses
Conducting such employment screening helps the hospital staff to stay in the best physical and mental health. Additionally, there is a positive environment as candidates with adverse screening reports about their identity, experience, qualifications, or background history are avoided being hired during pre-employment screening. The efforts to pick the right candidate or eliminate an existing one based on their employment screening results promote a healthy work environment.
Safety of Vulnerable Patients
Hospital background checks ensure a safe and harmonious environment at medical facilities. Healthcare workers seem to be concerned with patients’ safety, including vulnerable individuals like the elderly, kids, and special needs people. With regular and routine employment screening, hospital authorities are sure that the employees associated with their specific job roles in different departments are responsible enough to successfully execute.
The background screening supports a safe and peaceful environment for employees eliminating violence, and conflicts, mainly due to substance and alcohol abuse and criminal records.
Serious Consideration for Employment Screening
Every year a large percentage of healthcare workers from different departments associated with hospitals and medical facilities in the nation face the medical board disciplinary action on the grounds of drug and alcohol abuse, negligence, fraud related to licenses and qualifications, sexual abuse, professional misconduct, unfitness, incompetence, etc.
Workplace misconduct and accidents can be avoided when hospital authorities facilitate a safe work culture.
To avoid such scenarios, hospital authorities and employers must ensure that new and existing healthcare candidates undergo different types of employment screening during the job process and after joining the hospital for specific job roles. A comprehensive employment screening starting from overall physical assessment, alcohol and drug screening, physical ability tests, criminal background checks, psychological assessment, etc., must be conducted seriously.
Conclusion
The healthcare sector is an overwhelming and complicated network of doctors, nurses, caregivers, volunteers, healthcare aids, and other resources. They all work together to ensure the safety and overall well-being of patients. The hospital staff is responsible for handling the protection and treatment of vulnerable populations, clinical data, medical devices, equipment, sensitive patient information, and so on. Thus, it becomes essential for hospitals to look into the quality of candidates hired seriously. Comprehensive hospital background checks are an excellent idea. This is more so because background screening can offer information about the educational qualifications, experience in the sector, criminal history, and all other elements of a candidate and determine whether they are suitable.
