State Orders More Oversight on RNs with Criminal Convictions

State regulators have ordered the Board of Registered Nursing (BRN) to obtain fingerprints of all nurses licensed before 1990, or about 40% of the state's 343,000 active RNs. This is so law enforcement agencies can send the board a ?red flag? when a nurse gets arrested.

Carrie Lopez, director of the California Department of Consumer Affairs, announced the action after the Los Angeles Times reported it found more than 115 cases since 2002 in which the nursing board failed to act against nurses' licenses until the nurses had been convicted three or more times. This includes 24 cases with five convictions.

?I've directed the [nursing] board to require that all applicants for license renewal disclose any criminal convictions, while BRN staff proposes emergency regulations to the board to secure fingerprints from all of its licensees, regardless of when their initial license was granted,? Lopez said. The board ?has and has had the authority to require applicants seeking renewal of their license to identify whether they've been convicted of a crime,? she added.

Of 3,900 complaints filed against California nurses in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 332 nurses got referred to diversion programs, 131 were put on probation, 10 were temporarily suspended, and 67 lost their licenses, says a recent report on enforcement statistics by the nursing board. Criminal activities were filed against 23 nurses, and 599 cases are pending before the state attorney general, the report says.

As of June 1, 2008, applicants for nursing exams are also required to have background checks from the FBI and the Department of Justice, the nursing board said.

Since 1990, all new nurses have had to be fingerprinted, but the
requirement was previously waived for those already actively licensed
before that date.