Healthcare organizations vary in their use of background checks in Canada and other verifications. Some turn to reliable third-party platforms, whereas others opt to review documentation and perform verifications in-house.

The in-house option has proven to be a dangerous game for healthcare organizations for a variety of reasons:

  • You are putting a lot of responsibility on your team to identify fraud.
  • You are opening yourself up to bias hiring.
  • You are opening yourself up to liability. Period.

According to Global News, The BC Women’s Hospital is a great example of a healthcare organization that has found itself in legal trouble. It is currently under a class action lawsuit because they hired a person who was using a false name to work as a nurse when she was in fact not a licensed nurse.

This is just one of a myriad of examples we can give on how complete background checks in Canada for all healthcare roles is the best path to:

  • centralizing, aligning, and reducing the cost of background checks.
  • improving the consistency in quality of verifications.
  • ensuring public safety.
  • mitigating legal problems.

So, what is a complete background check package in Canada:

1. Employment history verification.

2.Education verification (professional designation and licensing). This is so important for healthcare organizations and probably best outsourced to ensure that no candidate slips through that hasn’t had their credentials validated. Part of validating credentials like education and licensing means validating the source locally, and internationally and that’s why this can be a heavy burden on your in-house team.

3. Criminal record checks ensure you don’t hire someone who is a public safety risk.

4. Reference checks.

5. ID verification helps to ensure that staff identities are properly organized and validated.

6. Social media background checks will reveal problematic online behaviour that other background checks won’t, like substance abuse, violence, hate speech, criminal activities, and more.

If the role involves driving, add driving record abstracts to the list.

With international medical tourism, immigration, and frankly Canada’s need/demand for healthcare workers, the ability to obtain the above checks is critical both in Canada and internationally.

This is something that can be expedited most efficiently by working with a partner who offers centralized background checks. You really shouldn’t accept anything less because centralized checks mean your team can work faster, and by having all of your checks with the same provider you can negotiate more advantageous contract terms based on your overall volume.

Whether the role is a maintenance worker, technician, EMT, nurse, or doctor, these checks are needed every time. For more information about better equipping your healthcare organization with centralized background checks please visit www.tritoncanada.ca.