Universal Criminal Background Checks for Nursing Home Employees May Become Reality This Year
The Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention Act was reintroduced into the Senate this week. The bill is intended to prevent workers with criminal histories from working in skilled nursing facilities.
The bill requires each state to establish coordinated systems that include checks against neglect and abuse registries, the FBI database and state police records.
The bill had been introduced last year but failed to make it out of Congress.
State background investigation requirements are checkered and lack any uniformity making it easy for someone with a criminal conviction in one state to escape detection in another.
If this legislation becomes law, it will go a long way in reducing violence to nursing home residents.
