Infection threat prompts questions on background checks of hospital staffers

February 29, 2000
Web posted at: 5:28 p.m. EST (2228 GMT)

From CNN Correspondent Jonathan Aiken

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Nearly 300 people who were patients at Georgetown University Medical Center received disquieting letters last week: You need to be tested for infectious diseases.

Also disturbing was the cited reason. A hospital radiology technician was arrested and accused of siphoning painkillers from patients' intravenous bags for his own use, then replacing the drugs with saline solution, possibly using contaminated needles in the process.

Hospital officials said they believe patients faced minimal risk of infection. But, for the affected patients as well as for health-care providers and receivers in general, the development raised questions about how well applicants for hospital work are investigated.

The American Hospital Association recommends that administrators require all employees who provide patient care to be tested for use of unlawful drugs. Georgetown does not require pre-employment drug tests of any employee below the level of a doctor or nurse.

The arrested employee is a radiation technician, what officials call an "allied-health professional." These are the technicians, assistants and orderlies whom patients come in contact with the most.

The Georgetown worker holds technician licenses in the District of Columbia and Maryland. No criminal background search was conducted. Maryland officials checked his school and job references. The rest of the application was assumed to be correct.

Of 41 states responding to a survey of state medical boards in 1998, only three -- California, Florida and Louisiana -- required criminal background and fingerprint checks of health-care providers.

The main reason more states don't conduct the checks is money, the survey indicated. In Maryland alone, criminal background checks on applicants for hospital work could cost as much as $3 million a year. That's half the state budget of Maryland's medical oversight board.

While a national database has just been established to track physicians convicted of criminal fraud, there is no database to check the majority of hospital workers.