Heilig announced the Council’s panel discussion on Criminal
Background Checks for Practicum Students in Health Care Settings.
Heilig said that the Council would hear the perspectives that
attendees had on the issue. Yoder elaborated that the panel’s
objective was to inform and to share what is happening in
North Carolina on the CBC issue. No resolution would be reached
on the issue. The goal would be for members to inform and
help each other within the various settings which they had
particular concerns.
Yoder stated that some individuals have jumped on the issue
that the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care
Organization (JCAHO) had required that CBC be performed. He
clarified that the JCAHO requires the institution in question
to comply with the state requirements. Yoder told attendees
that the JCAHO statement was in the meeting literature for
review.
Steve Thomas, Dean of the Allied Health Sciences for East
Carolina University spoke first. Thomas explained that he
had gathered information from eight North Carolina universities
with allied health programs and how they were addressing the
CBC issue. The compiled information came from the universities
of: Western Carolina University, Winston-Salem State University,
Duke, UNC-Charlotte, Elon, ECU, and UNC-CH. He stated that
Western Carolina had no policy and that their College of Applied
Sciences was waiting for a directive from the UNC Office of
the President. Winston-Salem State indicated that if a background
check is needed, the student is responsible for obtaining
the CBC. However, their nursing students are responsible in
obtaining a CBC before taking their nursing boards. Duke University,
UNC Charlotte and Elon University do not have an existing
CBC policy, but UNC Charlotte is waiting for one. ECU’s
School of Allied Health Science policy requires the student
to obtain and pay for their CBC. Their Nursing department
requires that when the student applies for the program they
submit a CBC. UNC at Chapel Hill requires student to complete
a two-page form. Upon the forms completion and return to the
university, the university then works with a contracted company
to conduct the CBC. The information is then shared with the
clinical coordinator who shares the information with the site
supervisor.
Thomas said that ECU requires students to provide their own
CBC because it is a costly and timely process that requires
additional university staff. ECU has approximately 300 people
going to medical sites a year.
Thomas explained that if a university is placed in performing
the CBC, the university is in a situation of handling sensitive
data and risks sending the wrong forms to the wrong place.
He said that if a university is handing and sending the CBC
documents, the university is verifying the information the
student is providing to the institution requesting the CBC.
The university becomes responsible for incomplete information
that the student might have failed to supply. If a student
goes to a site and this omitted information is discovered,
the university becomes culpable and will be accused of not
engaging in due diligence. Thomas concluded that by giving
the responsibility of the CBC to the student, the university
will not have to confront money, confidentiality or incomplete
due diligence issues associated with CBC.
Thomas added that JCAHO addresses the drug screening issue
and that drug screening is costly and runs between $65.00
to $75.00 dollars. He said that the drug screening issue must
be linked with CBC policy making.
James Sadler, Associate Vice President for Planning at UNC
General Admission provided his input on the CBC issue. Sadler
said that he had spoken with university attorney Betsy Bunyon
who indicated that the pressure of the CBC issue comes from
the accrediting agency. The general recommendation is that
anyone coming into the hospitals including volunteers will
be required to have a CBC in the future.
Bunyon had met with the UNC Chapel Hill Campus and spoke
with individuals involved in the UNC systems health care and
hospital facilities. The UNC system performs about five to
six thousand checks a year. CBC are a difficult subject to
address due to their not being easy to perform. The best approach
in handing a CBC is finger printing such as the type lawyers
have the right to do or to investigate county court house
records.
Difficulties stem from people having alias, changing their
names, social security numbers, addresses and dates of birth.
Sadler said that while these searches might be required, most
states do not have such on-line searching systems. Sadler
added that juvenile records are sealed which makes checking
into someone’s past a potentially dangerous situation.
Bunyon is trying to establish how many checks are required
and if a vendor could perform them for the UNC system. In
Chapel Hill, police officers have been hired full time to
perform the tests and that it takes about six weeks.
Sadler indicated that Bunyon was preparing an RFP, which
will be sent to the North Carolina Purchasing and Contracts
Office in Raleigh. This RFP would be one geared toward clinical
settings for the sixteen UNC campuses. Bunyon stated that
she wants something available sometime in the spring and would
not submit the RFP until January 6, 2005. Council members
were welcomed to provide Bunyon with their feedback. Bunyon
said that she would have the RFP on the purchasing website
for review for about thirty days.
Sadler said that one of the areas of concern around CBCs
was whether after a CBC had been conducted if the desired
result had been achieved. Some groups do not want to know
the results of a CBC due to possible liabilities. Some individuals
are reluctant to force the issue about the results. Bunyon
is speaking with campus attorneys on this issue.
Sadler questioned how institutions would weigh the age, the
circumstance and the gravity of the conviction when it is
discovered. Thomas commented that hospitals should establish
a crime’s gravity. Thomas investigated hospital websites
and discovered that hospitals had effective systems in specifying
what they would and would not consider a serious crime. Thomas
emphasized that the university should not be the gatekeeper
for the CBC issue and if the hospital seeks an evaluation,
it should not be the responsibility of the university to supply
one.
Cathy Franklin-Griffin, for NC Community College System spoke
next. She indicated the North Carolina Community Colleges
started scrutinizing this problem in 1997. She had spoken
with attorney David Sullivan who said that the community colleges
in North Carolina are not permitted to require or do a CBC
as part of admissions criteria due to the legislative mandate
that they are an open door college.
Franklin-Griffin stated that community college students are
guests at clinical sites but that there are legislative mandates
that community colleges have to honor. Community colleges
can assist in providing some avenue to agencies trying to
obtain information on students, but cannot have access to
that information. She announced that Community Colleges are
forming a committee to construct a uniform response from all
the community colleges so they will have a policy inputted
to address that issue.
She expressed concern about students being accepted into
a program but then denied the chance to go on to clinical
sites due to a problematic CBC. Franklin-Griffin questioned
how educators would be able to hold a student to one standard
level and expect another institution to hold the student up
to that same level.
Tom Connelly, Dean of Cabarrus College of Health Science
began his presentation on the CBC by supplying Council members
with the Cabarrus College of Health Sciences Background and
Sanction Checks policy handout. He examined human resource
standard HR 1.20 item no. 5, which asked for information on
criminal backgrounds. The September 2004 update created confusion
due to it’s statement that in the absence of state law,
an organization can develop their own expectations on what
it wants as far as criminal background checking is concerned.
Connelly explained that Cabarrus decided that they as an
institution wanted to live with CBC for a long time. The College
has been performing drug screening for some time and that
the students pay for their background checks. This is due
to the college’s relationship with North East Medical
Center. Students are charged $45.00 for their checks. Cabarrus
has made CBC part of the admissions process and which includes
social security number traces, criminal history and North
Carolina sex offender background checks.
The admission policy states that if a student has committed
a felonious act in the past seven year or committed one of
the twelve items listed on their application, admission to
the school will not be granted. Connelly stated that Cabarrus
finances the background checks and they are conducted within
a 24 hour turnover time for $8.75. The checks include state,
federal, criminal, sex offender, federal sanctions checks
and the terrorist list. Results are supplied to the admission
office and placed in the student confidentiality information
file. Results consisting of charges go to Connelly (Dean)
for review. Connelly said that if Cabarrus cannot complete
the student’s education due to a problematic CBC, then
they will not grant them admission.
Connelly concluded that institutions should work with the
agencies in question, indicate that they are going to have
limits to their expectations, but that they have set a standard
and a criteria that they demand their students meet. Connelly’s
PP presentation is listed on the Council web site.
Heilig concluded the CBC panel discussion and stated that
there is the huge impression that health care can no longer
protect individuals. In reaction, hospitals are taking the
most prescriptive and conservative measures to change this
perception. Heilig said that the issues involved are quality,
safety and restoring the health care reputation. The Joint
Commission accredits over 500 hospitals a year and the hospitals
are trying to meet a standard. Heilig said that the North
Carolina Board of Nursing constructed a task force to examine
drug diversion and she predicted that more hospital will become
more strident in their policies.
The Council broke for a brief break and reconvened at 10:55
a.m. Heilig introduced Dr. Anita Holmes the executive director
of the Center for Health and Healing for the General Baptist
State Convention Health Careers Project. Heilig indicated
that Linda Horton, the workforce coordinator for the Hospital
Association, presently works with Dr. Holmes on the project.
The Association has been working with the Center for about
a year.
Holmes thanked the Council for the opportunity to share information
about the Minority and Health Career Program. She provided
an overview about what the Center for Health and Healing is
about and what work is performed. The Convention started in
1867 and is the largest faith based membership organization
in North Carolina consisting of about 2,000 churches. The
convention is broken down into 62 associations with about
600,000 congregation members, with approximately forty percent
of North Carolina’s African American population being
represented.
The Convention’s organization consist of a salaried
executive secretary treasurer Reverend Haywood Gray who started
January 2005. The Convention’s and various auxiliaries
include: the Laymen’s League, the Ushers Convention,
the Conference of Christian Education, Women’s Baptist
Home, the Missionaries Convention, the Ministers Council and
two allied affiliated groups the General Baptist Foundation
and the Center for Health and Healing.
The Minority and Health Career Program started in the late
1970’s by John Hatch, a professor at the University of
North Carolina in Health Education. Hatch was working on a
Chatham County Project and spoke with John Manley the president
of the Convention at the first Baptist Church in Chapel Hill
in order to dispel misconceptions that mammograms were not
helpful in the early detection and survival rates of individuals
from breast cancer. Hatch and Manley’s collaboration
lead to the creation of the Health and Human Service Program
known as the Whole Person’s Ministry: Body, Mind and
Spirit but adding the component of spirituality.
The organization’s mission statement is to achieve optimum
well-being for the convention, its members and the broader
community based on Christian ministry with none of the programs
limited to ethnicity or denomination. The convention wants
to provide leadership role in the health area, protect everyone’s
right to health care, to develop health ministry, develop
individuals to advocate the rights of the family, to help
economically disadvantage groups and to work with other religious
denominations. The organization is a 501 C-3 non-profit entity.
Parent programs include Faith and Health Initiative, Healthy
Beginnings, Picture Me Tobacco Free – a youth initiative,
Operation Senior Care, and Minority Health Career Initiative.
Short-term projects include End of Life Decision Making Seminar.
Holmes added that the volunteers make the organization exist.
Holmes explained that the convention is questioned about
its connection with the church. She explained that basic movements
in the African American community have their origins in the
church and that it is the natural meeting place to inform
the public.
The Convention’s official publication is the Baptist
Informer, which has a reading audience of about 9000 and provides
information about health projects and youth careers.
Holmes said that the convention’s goal is to let youth
become familiar with diversity in the health care fields and
to develop products and protocols linked to biblical structure.
A curriculum sessions includes: an introduction to health
career club, health status and disparities, health careers,
targeted health careers, field trips to health care organizations,
team reports, and the continuation of team reports and projects.
Basic strategy of the Health Career Club is to develop church
based health career clubs in order to strengthen the workforce
in health care, increase the number and diversity, to provide
positive economic impact, to enhance opportunity to spotlight
health disparities, and to promotion health and leadership
skills development.
Holmes stated that in the course of the development, the Convention
would like to create 40 health career clubs for youth between
the ages of 12-17, with pastoral, youth, and career leaders,
and to have local regional sessions, to establish a five health
career tracks and to establish protocols/products linked to
biblical principles of health and healing.
Holmes said that five C’s for managing multiple partnerships
have included: coordination, communication, cooperation, compromise
and care. Heilig added that the challenge of the Convention
to grow and to manage that growth.
