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I have just one comment. All the education and certification in the world is not going to make a good home care provider. Or nurse. Or doctor. No matter what a person's training is, there are a few people out there who make the rest of us look bad. Many years ago when I worked as an LPN in a small hospital in Florida, one of our RNs was arrested right on graveyard shift. She had been stealing narcotics from the medications cart. The good thing that came out of this was that the hospital pharmacy changed its method of dispensing and documenting narcotics.

I'm not saying that I think this initiative is wrong, it's just that I'm not so sure that it will fix the problem. Right now, I am employed as a home care worker. I've been with the same agency for 11 years. I get background checks done every two years and they always came back spotless. That is until last year. The Washington State Patrol has expanded their background checks to include information from all public agencies.

My employer had to terminate me for what showed up and I had no idea what I might have done. I called WSP and they did not have me in their data base. I've never been arrested. It turned out that something happened in 2002 and a complaint was filed against me. Because of a major mistake the State of WA made, I was off work for over 6 months. My termination had been changed to a suspension thanks to my union rep. My good name has been cleared and now I'm back on active status with my employer.

I agree that the system needs to be reworked, but at what cost?

posted 4 years, 7 months ago
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