Hospitals face new standards effective January 1, 2006 for verification of professional licenses
Effective January 1, 2006, the Joint Commission (formerly the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization or JCAHO) required that hospitals and covered health care entities conduct Primary Source Verification (PSV) on all licensed, registered or certified staff.
The rule applies to both employees and contract staff and also applies to the process of tracking license renewals as well. The new standard is contained in HR.1.20.
For hospitals and covered health care organizations, there is a logistical challenge in obtaining, tracking, updating and maintaining an audit trail for all employees who are required to be licensed, registered or certified. Licenses are typically checked when an employee is first hired, but covered entities must now verify the information from the primary source, track expiration and manage the process of updating records from the primary source in order to be in compliance.
To help hospitals and covered entities comply, ESR has created special software for its clients called the ESR PVScheck Database . The software manages and tracks the entire process in accordance with the new standards. For example the software generates automatic reports on all employees and contractors with licenses that are expiring. The ESR PVScheck Database provides tools to conduct license verification for the primary source and to track all current and past licensees. Each department in the hospital can determine if it wants to conduct the Primary Source Verification itself, or have ESR do it. During a JCAHO audit, all necessary information demonstrating compliance with the Primary Source Verification rule is instantly available.
For more information on the database and how to be in compliance, contact Jared Callahan at jcallahan@ESRcheck.com or 415-898-0044 ext. 240.
