By Christina Orlovsky, senior staff writer
As the nation faces a severe nursing shortage, many facilities
are searching for qualified staff to fill vacancies. But what happens when a
hired nurse’s credentials are less than legitimate? In one state, a rising
number of impostor nurses have facilities—and the state nursing board—on the
lookout.
In Arizona, the number of people caught posing as nurses has
continued to increase over the past five years, climbing from seven in 2002 to
29 in 2004, according to the Arizona State Board of Nursing. The organization’s
Web site lists a total of 92 people that have either applied for a position,
been employed or “represented themselves to others as a nurse or CNA without
evidence of a valid license or certificate to practice in Arizona.”
According to Valerie Smith, MS, RN, associate director of
complaints and investigations for the Arizona State Board of Nursing, the reason
for the rise in occurrences of impostor nurses is two-fold.
One reason for the rise, Smith said, is that more people are
attempting to pose as nurses because they are aware of the nursing shortage and
the consequential increase in nursing salaries. The majority of impostors have
some sort of health care background, she added, whether as certified nursing
assistants posing as a licensed practical nurses or LPNs posing as RNs.
“One recent case was a radiology technician who somehow got
hold of someone else’s license, changed the name and address and was able to
secure a job as an RN in an outpatient surgical setting,” Smith explained. “She
worked in that job for two years, providing numerous reasons for not bringing in
her license. Her employer finally plugged her name into our site and didn’t find
her. They plugged in the RN number and it came up, only with someone else’s
name.”
This particular case is just one example of the second reason
for the rise in impostor incidences.
“We’ve become better at identifying them,” Smith said. “Not
only have they used technology to their advantage in falsifying documents, but
we’re using technology to identify them.”
Smith pointed to the nursing board’s Web site as the perfect
source for licensure verification.
“The significant increase of impostors caught in Arizona
coincides with the time we put our licensure verification online,” she added.
“An employer can now go onto our site to verify that a person is licensed at the
point of hire,” instead of years down the road.
Smith also explained that it is the obligation of a state
board of nursing to provide evidence that a person is a licensed health care
provider. Before the advent of the Internet, she added, a list was provided to
and published by the newspaper.
“Making license numbers available to the public is not new,”
she said. “What’s new is that now we have the technology to allow us to be able
to do that in real time.”
There are a number of other methods hiring personnel can
employ to ensure their new hires are indeed who—and how well educated—they say
they are.
“First, never accept a copy of a document,” Smith said. “Many
times the impostors get by because they have altered documents and provided
copies. Always look at a source document and then take the extra step: Verify
that document online.”
Another way to stop impostors from falling through the cracks
is to compare a job candidate’s application and resume and then question any
inconsistencies.
“In every case we have looked at there has been a disconnect
between the application and the resume,” Smith explained. “The name on the
application differs from that on the license or other documents. People’s names
change—through marriage, divorce or for other reasons—but their license should
always be in their legal name.”
If the person is applying under a different name, Smith added,
“don’t accept the story.”
Finally, if an impostor does make it past the hiring
checkpoint and into the workplace, it is every staff member’s responsibility to
pay attention to any demonstration of unmatched competency—the inability do
something their licensure, education or experience should permit them to do.
“Anytime the thought goes through your mind, ‘I wonder if this
person is really a nurse because she’s not really able to do the job,’ follow up
on that,” Smith asserted.
“It is a privilege to hold a nursing license. Part of that
privilege is that the public has a right to know a nurse’s background, education
and experience,” she added. “I would encourage employers and the public to take
advantage of that information that is public record to ensure a provider is who
they say they are.”
For more information, visit the Arizona State Board of Nursing
Web site.
© 2005. AMN Healthcare, Inc. All Rights Reserved.