LOS ANGELES – A Connecticut nurse is spending six months in jail after her conviction in April of second-degree reckless endangerment following the death of a child under her care.
She was also convicted of making a false statement – for failing to disclose on her Connecticut nursing license renewal application that her nursing license in Florida had been revoked in 2004 following the death of a child under her care.
While the situation may seem extreme, a recent survey of close to 10,000 physicians, nurses and ancillary healthcare personnel found that nearly 9 percent of physicians were practicing with one or more of 52 questionable issues regarding their credentials. Those issues range from sanctions, reprimands of malpractice claim payments to expired or revoked license to having no license at all.
The survey, conducted by Medversant Technologies, a Los Angeles-based provider of Web-based healthcare practitioner management applications, points to a need among healthcare providers to be more diligent about checking the credentials of those administering care.
“Doctors are human beings … and they have issues,” says Matthew Haddad, president and CEO of Medversant, which markets its OneSource credential-checking technology to healthcare providers. “These types of (situations) are happening all the time, and all of these can directly affect patient care.”
Aside from Medversant’s study, a recent news report from New York indicated that more than 2 percent of doctors practicing in that state last year landed on the state medical board’s watch list because of substance abuse and mental health concerns. And in Texas, a television station’s check of the status of every licensed nurse in the state revealed that one of out every 20 has a criminal record.
Haddad says most healthcare providers check credentials at the time of hire and then perhaps take another look two or three years later. He said they don’t perform more regular credential checks because of the cost and time involved in updating each employee’s records and checking them against various databases.
