On Sunday, September 23, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram ran a major story by Darren Barbee about the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Service and that agency’s background check and certification procedures for nurse aides. The headline was “Nurse aides let back into jobs despite ban: Texas recertifies some caregivers who were disciplined in theft and abuse cases.” Barbee described the way things work this way.
The tales found in the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Service’s disciplinary files can be savage, sad and stomach-turning. But they are intended to serve an essential purpose: protecting Texas grandparents, disabled children and the terminally ill from abusive or dishonest nurse aides and other caregivers.
But dangerous blind spots plague the system that oversees them, a Star-Telegram examination has found. Across the state, caregivers facing discipline for sexual misconduct, theft, abuse — and a fatal case of neglect — were all able to find and hold new jobs.
There are lessons here for you, even if you’re not in the nursing home business or in the government.
Lesson number one. No background check system will help you if you don’t use it. You can’t drive a nail with a hammer you never pick up. Many nursing homes simply didn’t check on the background of the people they hired.
Lesson number two. You have to act on what you find. If you use the system you’ve got, but don’t do anything with the information you get, you’re wasting money and putting yourself and your employees at risk.
Lesson number three. A background check is only part of your system. To maintain a safe and productive workplace, you have to discipline and fire when that’s fair and necessary.
Lesson number four. Don’t depend on the government. Barbee’s article outlines pending Federal legislation to require background checks for nursing home workers. Even if the legislation makes it into law, someone is going to have to make sure those background checks get done.