A recent article in the LA Times caught our attention here at Prophecy Healthcare.  A very valid and present concern for the healthcare staffing industry was brought up in the article Temp Firms a Magnet for Unfit Nurses:

“Firms that supply temporary nurses to the nation’s hospitals are taking perilous shortcuts in their screening and supervision, sometimes putting seriously ill patients in the hands of incompetent or impaired caregivers” (Weber et al, 2009).

What a claim to be made with the potential to cause detrimental effects on the already declining healthcare staffing industry!

Unfortunately, the investigation conducted by the LA Times and ProPublica found significant instances where staffing firms “skimped on background checks or ignored warnings from hospitals about sub-par nurses on their payrolls. Some hired nurses sight unseen, without even conducting an interview” (Weber et al, 2009).

One reporter found that “firms hired nurses who had criminal records or left states where their licenses had been restricted or revoked. At least three firms employed a nurse in California whose license had been suspended in Minnesota for stealing drugs at a string of temp jobs. One used him after he’d been convicted of doing the same thing at a Santa Rosa nursing home” (Weber et al, 2009).

Unlike hospitals, staffing firms do not immediately see the effects of an unqualified or inept caregiver.  Hospitals entrust staffing firms with supplying caregivers to complete their workforce.  With hiring the primary focus of a staffing firm, hospitals assume that the firms have access to and effectively use industry leading pre-hire screening assessments.

A well-known fact is staffing firms pay the bills by placing their employees.  Therefore, the possibility that firms knowingly place incompetent, unfit caregivers in hopes that they will not “mess up” is hard to ignore.

In fact, the reports of this investigation found examples of this exact fear:

“Temp agencies shuffled errant nurses from one hospital to another, even as complaints mounted. A Culver City agency continued sending one nurse to hospitals despite more than a dozen warnings that she was ignoring her patients and sleeping on the job. Before she was hired, the nurse had been convicted of 12 crimes, including prostitution, carrying a concealed weapon and possessing cocaine” (Weber et al, 2009).

Although Prophecy does not believe that these types of behaviors are the industry norm, we do feel that hospitals and staffing firms alike need to keep their focus on hiring the most qualified caregivers that match the job specific needs of the openings.  The current nursing shortage makes this task more challenging than ever.

So, what can be done?

We recommend hospitals look into the pre-screening tools implored by their elect staffing firm(s).  Supplying onboarding procedures should be a relatively easy task for staffing firms as the process should not differentiate from one clinician to the next.

Also, staffing firms and hospitals alike stand to benefit from reviewing and perhaps restructuring their internal hiring process.

Prophecy’s web-based assessment tools assess interpersonal competencies missed in traditional testing. The Behavioral, Clinical, and Situational assessments work together to create the most comprehensive employment predictor for the healthcare industry.

Regardless of the assessments selected, Prophecy strongly advises the use of assessments that are frequently monitored for reliability and validity given the ever-evolving practices in the fast-paced industry.  And, Prophecy’s clients can rest assured that these precautions are taken by our clinical team to ensure we offer the most accurate and complete assessments for the industry.

Check out how dedicated our clinical team is to this calling by the new development process our NurseTesting.com clinical assessments undergo in order to creating validated content!

Weber, T., Ornstein, C., & Schwartz, L. (2009, December 6). Temp Firms a Magnet for Unfit Nurses. The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-nurses6-2009dec06,0,1174984.story?page=1

About Prophecy – Prophecy is the aggregation of three assessment tools that work together to generate the most comprehensive employment predictor for the Healthcare Industry. Prophecy Clinical Assessments identify caregivers with sufficient job knowledge to perform successfully by targeting the most important aspects of each clinical specialty. Prophecy Behavioral Assessments identify caregivers with behavioral characteristics that predict high performance, such as Integrity and Conscientiousness. Prophecy Situational Assessments identify caregivers with soft-skills that are directly correlated to successful nursing practice. Learn more at www.prophecyhealth.com .