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As a healthcare organization, it's your responsibility to keep your staff and patients safe by employing qualified, dutiful medical professionals.
Conducting healthcare background checks during hiring is a start. However, what happens when an employee commits a serious offense that you don’t hear about? You need continuous medical staff monitoring to ensure organizational compliance and safety for those you serve.
Table of Contents
- What Is Medical Staff Monitoring?
- How Medical Staff Monitoring Works
- Why Continuous Monitoring Is Critical for Compliance & Safety
- Our Medical Staff Monitoring Tips
- How Continuous Monitoring Services Streamline the Process
What Is Medical Staff Monitoring?
Medical staff monitoring is the practice of using different methods and tools to track medical employee safety, licensure, engagement, and potential criminal activity.
The key purpose of medical staff monitoring is to ensure that employees remain in compliance with safety practices, even after they’ve been employed for years. You’re obligated to make sure they’re providing quality patient care and aren’t involved in illegal activities that could harm patients or fellow employees.
For example, monitoring can help you keep your medical staff up-to-date on their vaccinations and licensure requirements. It can also safeguard your organization by lowering the risk of an employee committing a crime without your knowledge.
What Information Is Monitored?
The information gathered during medical staff monitoring depends on your organization's needs. In healthcare, some of the most common information includes:
- Licensure: Employee credentials must be kept valid and up-to-date to avoid compliance pitfalls. Continuous license monitoring ensures that medical employees have the correct licensing at all times.
- Immunizations: Healthcare standards require all healthcare employees to have certain vaccinations. Immunization monitoring helps organizations know their staff is up-to-date on all vaccinations, ensuring safety and compliance.
- Substance use: Employees who come to work under the influence are a risk to your patients and staff. Drug and occupational health testing helps organizations identify potential substance abuse issues in the workplace.
- Exclusions and sanctions: Ongoing verification of potential exclusions and sanctions ensures compliance with Medicare and Medicaid standards, protecting your organization.
Is Monitoring the Same as Surveillance?
No. Surveillance typically involves targeted monitoring of specific individuals. It also usually uses round-the-clock observation rather than predetermined and agreed-upon observations.
The goal of medical staff monitoring is to gather data about your medical team as a whole. It only covers specific updates, all of which the employees should know about and should have given written consent to.
Are There Privacy Concerns for Staff?
Whenever you access employee information, there are privacy concerns. For example, data that isn't stored correctly could fall into the wrong hands. You must also follow federal and state privacy laws.
To protect your employees, invest in a medical staff monitoring partner. Choose one that understands the ins and outs of federal and state regulations. You should also implement a strong data security strategy within your organization.
How Medical Staff Monitoring Works
Medical staff monitoring processes vary depending on each healthcare organization's goals. Let's dive into some of the basics of how monitoring works.
Where Does the Information Come From?
The sources of information depend on the data you're monitoring. Exclusion and sanction data can be pulled from Officer of Inspector General, General Services Administration System for Award Management, and other registry databases. Ongoing criminal searches enable you to pull data from county, state, and federal courts.
The simplest way to continuously monitor medical staff is by implementing a background screening and monitoring solution. Choose one that includes all of these checks and more in one place.
How Often Do Organizations Run Screenings?
The frequency of screenings depends on what you want monitored. Criminal monitoring may be done continuously, ensuring that organizations receive alerts on reportable court data in real-time. License monitoring is often completed this way, alerting organizations through license expiration notifications.
On the other hand, full background screenings may only be completed every two to five years.
How Will I Know if Something Happened?
If you're using a service for continuous monitoring, like PreCheck, you'll receive notifications and alerts as soon as relevant situations occur. For example, if an employee's license is about to expire, you can send an alert directly to the employee or elect to receive a notification yourself, so the employee renews in time.
If you choose to monitor employees manually, it will be more difficult and time-consuming. You'll only uncover situations as you complete screenings and checks. Using a program that offers continuous monitoring will alert you sooner and save time checking, helping you better manage your resources.
Are There Services That Offer Continuous Monitoring?
Yes! PreCheck by Cisive is a background screening and monitoring platform built specifically for the healthcare industry. Through PreCheck, you can integrate all of your screening and monitoring processes. This includes everything from background checks and student screening procedures to drug testing and immunization monitoring.
All screening and monitoring data is easily accessible through PreCheck's user-friendly interface. The dashboard gives you the power to make informed decisions and maintain compliance. Plus, through notifications and alerts, you can act quickly when situations arise, protecting your organization from risk.
Why Continuous Monitoring Is Critical for Compliance & Safety
Continuous monitoring is important for compliance and safety as it helps you reduce liabilities and other key benefits.
Provides Oversight to Reduce Liabilities
Healthcare organizations must provide safe workplaces for their employees and quality care for their patients. If that doesn't happen, you can be held liable, resulting in consequences ranging from serious fines to loss of reputation.
In many cases, improper safety and lapses in care are due to negligence. For example, organizations may inadvertently keep employees who are involved in unsafe practices they haven’t yet discovered. Continuous monitoring enables you to have the oversight needed to reduce these liabilities.
Keeps You Compliant
Healthcare organizations must comply with state and federal laws and regulations. They must also follow guidelines set forth by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and other agencies.
Unfortunately, there are many ways healthcare organizations fall into non-compliance. For example, say you are failing to ensure employees have the correct vaccinations or are keeping employees who’ve committed serious crimes. These situations seriously impact employee and patient safety, putting you at risk of non-compliance.
Enables You to Provide Quality & Safe Patient Care
Around 1 in every 10 patients is harmed in healthcare. And more than 3 million deaths occur annually due to unsafe care. Continuous medical staff monitoring provides the tools to prevent patients from experiencing subpar care.
For example, ongoing drug testing ensures that employees are bringing their best to work. Background screening uncovers cases of substance abuse or misconduct that could put your patients in harm's way. License monitoring helps you know that staff have all the required education to offer the best care possible.
Safeguards Your Organization’s Reputation
By reducing liabilities, remaining in compliance, and providing safe patient care, you'll protect your organization's reputation. When choosing a physician, 75% of patients look to the recommendations of other patients through online reviews. Reputation is critical to the growth of your organization.
Our Top 6 Medical Staff Monitoring Tips
As experts in medical staff monitoring, we know a few things about building successful monitoring programs. Here are some of our top tips.
1. Create a Continuous Monitoring Policy
A continuous monitoring policy guides your efforts and ensures that everyone on your team follows best practices. It also helps you remain compliant with monitoring practices.
To create a policy, first determine what you need to monitor, why you want to monitor it, and when. Next, define who is responsible for monitoring and responding.
Creating a policy isn't a set-it-and-forget-it practice. You'll want to continuously update your policy based on changing needs and real-world situations.
2. Inform Staff of Your Screening Practices
Some state and federal laws may require you to inform your employees that they're being monitored. But even if these laws don't apply to you, it's still a great practice. Employees have a right to know they're being monitored, especially if it could impact their employment.
Document your monitoring practices and share them with your employees. Allow them to share their concerns with you. Be sure to explain that continuous monitoring helps ensure the safety of your workplace and the patients you all serve.
3. Know the Relevant Regulations & Fair Hiring Policies
Many regulations may impact how you conduct background checks and continuous monitoring. Some examples of these include:
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- The Fair Credit Reporting Act
- California's Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act
- State-by-state drug testing laws and requirements
- The Privacy Act of 1974
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It's important for you to know the relevant regulations to avoid non-compliance. We recommend working with a continuous monitoring service, such as PreCheck, designed to meet these stringent requirements.
4. Create a Plan in Case You Find an Issue
As you perform monitoring practices, issues will inevitably arise. Take the time to create and document a plan that outlines next steps, from communicating with employees to conducting disciplinary action when it’s needed.
For example, what happens if an employee commits a crime? Should an employee need a missing vaccination, what process will you follow to ensure they get it? How will you communicate with the employee? What follow-up measures will you take?
If you choose to take adverse action, be sure to follow all laws and regulations. A background screening service like PreCheck can manage the adverse action process on your behalf.
5. Document Your Findings & Resulting Actions
In addition to documenting your monitoring practices, you’ll also want to document any disciplinary action taken.
Documentation serves as a guide for measuring progress and carrying out follow-up conversations with employees. And in the case of termination, documentation protects your organization from legal risks, such as wrongful termination lawsuits.
6. Use Reliable Medical Staff Monitoring Services
A reliable service, like Cisive’s PreCheck, can help you keep all the documentation required for compliance. It also stays up-to-date on all regulations, so you know you’re always in compliance.
How Continuous Monitoring Services Streamline the Process
Manually performing continuous monitoring when employing hundreds or even thousands of employees is impossible. Partnering with a reliable medical staff monitoring service, like PreCheck, can streamline the process by:
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- Integrating all monitoring processes into one platform: From background checks to license monitoring, all tools and services are in one easy-to-use platform. You no longer need multiple monitoring tools.
- Implementing flexible solutions to fit your needs: PreCheck is an enterprise-level talent solution built to work in your environment. This flexibility enables us to meet your unique needs as they grow and change.
- Ensuring accurate screening and monitoring: When it comes to eliminating risks and remaining compliant, accuracy matters. PreCheck offers 99.9994% background pull accuracy (the best in the industry). The data you receive will be correct and timely, helping you make the right decisions to protect your organization.
- Leveraging 30+ years of healthcare industry knowledge: The healthcare industry has complex regulatory and compliance challenges. We help you seamlessly monitor while keeping you compliant by leveraging decades of experience.
- Putting automation to work: Tools like automated employment verification reduce the time your staff spends on tedious tasks, freeing them to focus on more important work.
Choose PreCheck to Monitor Your Medical Staff Efficiently
As a healthcare organization, you must hire qualified professionals to provide safe patient care, remain compliant, and ensure a safe workplace for your employees. A single background check before hiring isn't enough.
Choose PreCheck for continuous medical staff monitoring to ensure compliance and workplace safety over time. Speak with a PreCheck expert today!
