Criminal Background Check on Nurses Requirements in Minnesota, Research Paper Example

Background checks have become very common in this uncertain environment. Starting for colleges to employers, everybody is trying to confirm if they are recruiting a spotless person. Even government authorizes will conduct background checks while issuing licenses or renewing licenses for nurses and doctors. This small piece of writing gives you brief information on criminal history requirements in criminal background check for applicants in healthcare market in Minnesota.

Nursing profession is one of the trusted professions in the world. Though, nursing is not synonymous with the crime, numerous of cases reported where nurses have criminal history. This has made State Government of Minnesota to take strict actions to verify the criminal history or back ground to determine the eligibility to get the license or renewal of the license. Minnesota law demands any individual, who directly involves in providing services to patients, should get the license from the Minnesota Department of Health (St. Paul 2007). Minnesota Department of Health will take the prime responsibility of background checks in the fiend of healthcare sector in Minnesota.

Every individual, who practices professional nursing in Minnesota, should hold a temporary license or Minnesota Registered Nurse License. And, any individual, who is into practical nursing, should hold a Practical Nursing License or Licensed Practical Nurse (LNR) provided by Minnesota State. If an individual does not hold either of the licenses, he is not eligible to use the designation “nurse” and should not try to treat people. In criminal background checks of nurses, the prime priority will be given to licenses. To obtain this license, it is very important for every nurse to submit the application form for license by endorsement and fee (Kathleen 2012)

There are two types of criminal record checks. They are Vulnerable Sector and Standard Sector. Vulnerable sector in criminal history check is considered as minor. In the healthcare sector, the background check is purely related to standard sector. The standard sector background check is divided into 4 levels. It is kind of scale, where 1 is recognized as basic crime and 4 is recognized as severe crime. Most of the employees in health sector in Minnesota would go for high risk back ground checks as the profession is very sensitive in nature. In a situation that the name of the person and gender is matched with the existing database of the Computer Criminal History, he or she needs to submit fingerprints to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

Employers will try to find the data from state criminal conviction data or federal data in most of the cases. Both Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) and DHS will be involved in checking the criminal background of an applicant. Employers can request for criminal background data for $20 or less depends on level of background research. Once the request is processed, DHS checks with BCA for any maltreatment records at national level and FBI for international level maltreatment. Most of the times, applicants need to provide fingerprints to finish the background check successfully (Matt 2010).

Individuals can request Minnesota Department of Health to reconsider the background check is he or she feels that the records are incorrect or misleading. It may take up to 30 days to process the request.

References

Kathleen Haberman (2012). Report to the Legislature in Compliance with Minnesota Statutes section 3D.06. Minnesota Board of Nursing, sunset review, 2012.

Matt Gehring (2010). Criminal Background Check Statutes: An Overview. House Research Department, Revised: January 2010. Retrieved on February 5, 2012 from < http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/bkgdchck.pdf>

St. Paul (2007). Background check statutes: An overview. Minnesota House Research Department, 2007.