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HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE - THE CASE FOR ONLINE SOCIAL PROFILING

The Health & Social Care industry is increasingly using Online Social Profiling to enhance standards of recruitment and to strengthen pre-employment screening in the backdrop of an increased number of highlighted cases of patient abuse by healthcare professionals. The SP Index explores the case for Online Social Profiling within an industry which is constantly under the spotlight.

BACKGROUND

Recent legal cases in the UK have highlighted that for decades institutional abuse has been a problem within the health and social care industry. Once exposed, the social and financial costs as well as damage to brand are phenomenal

The number of recognised vulnerable adults in need of care is increasing year on year and sadly the percentages of those being ill-treated is rising just as rapidly.

• 39% of known abuse is caused by healthcare professionals in a patient's own home
• 36% is suffered within care homes
• 31% of overall abuse is caused directly by healthcare professionals

[Source: Report published by the Health & Social Care Information Centre]

HOW ONLINE SOCIAL PROFILING IS POSITIVELY INFLUENCING CARE QUALITY STANDARDS

Online Social Profiling looks into the individual's online social media and networks in order to identify risk associated with behavioural traits leaning towards violence and threatening behaviour, racism, discrimination and harassment, bullying, abuse and illegal activity.

For simplicity, let's refer to those individuals with these negative traits as 'Beta' workers.

The result of 18 months of research by the SP-Index [2010-2012] into online cognitive style shows that there is 67% likelihood that these Beta workers will demonstrate the same behaviours in the workplace. Ironically, social media will often be used as a platform to execute such negative traits towards colleagues and even patients. These individuals illuminate behaviours that would normally lie in the dark shadows during traditional methods of assessing the suitability of workers i.e.CV [related article], interview, psychometric test and/or other pre-screening checks such as employment references, DBS and credit checks.

Responsible healthcare organisations deploy Online Social Profiling as part of their employee pre-screening process in order to prevent or reduce the risk that Beta workers may in future cause harm to the patients, colleagues, brand, and other stakeholders after employment commences. This process helps to maintain a positive culture amongst healthcare teams and results in motivational improvements. The risk of instances of abuse to patients or service users is dramatically reduced and as a result of all these factors the overall quality of care improves.

The Health and Social Care industry benefits from a very specific pre-employment check known as a HOBRA (Healthcare Online Behaviour Risk Assessment) [related fact sheet]. The HOBRA check counters the threat of bullying, abuse and leakage of patient information. It is a critical check for those organisations operating in an environment in which high standards of care constitute core objectives and where the likelihood of abuse may be at its greatest.

The SP Index team are thought leaders in Online Social Profiling and are the UK's leading supplier of compliant profiling. If you would like further information about Online Social Profiling or wish to apply your own situation to our benefits calculator in order to evaluate your Return on Investment, please contact:

E: sarah.poynton@sp-index.com  

T: 0845 177 0700

Feel free to share your feedback on this article @SP_index and include the hash tag #onlinesocialprofiling.

www.sp-index.com  

www.linkedin.com/in/sarahpoynton

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BENEFITS CASE EXAMPLE 1 - DOES ANYONE IN YOUR ORGANISATION LOOK INTO THE ONLINE PROFILES OF STAFF OR NEW RECRUITS?

Let’s use an example for a typical private healthcare group in the UK - a mid-sized private health group with 1,000 health care workers. Recruiting managers don’t currently carry out an online check for every individual recruited - this decision is normally the result of an internal risk assessment to define which roles are appropriate for a check. But let’s just assume that every recruit is subject to a check.

Assuming a replenishment level of 10%, this would result in 100 new recruits each year. According to our database of historic profile results, 1 in 10 recruits will receive a ‘red light’ status warning - these represent Beta workers. In other words, they will show some elements of bullying, harassment, brand abuse, leakage of sensitive information, links to illegal activities etc. within their online profile.

This means that the healthcare provider would be bringing into their business an estimated 10 Beta employees every year who are likely to show signs of undesirable behavioural traits.

The HOBRA check would identify these BETA candidates and allow the healthcare provider to prevent future risk of abuse

Assuming that recruiting managers spend a prudent 30mins looking into their online accounts of every recruit - this would be 50 hours per year carrying out non-compliant and probably inaccurate and subjective checks during recruitment. To request a HOBRA check takes 90 seconds per recruit which equates to only 2.5 hours during a whole year.

95% less time will be spent carrying out online checks for 100% recruitment coverage

The healthcare will become fully compliant with HR legal and ethical guidelines and elements of discrimination will be removed

Great talent will no longer be inadvertently or otherwise overlooked and the standard of recruitment will be maintained or even improved

Of course, if we assumed that the healthcare provider was not checking any staff at all, this leaves an evident gap in the screening process and the provider risks 10 Beta workers entering the business.

Conclusion: Online Social Profiling would eliminate or at least minimise the number of Beta candidates entering the business and as a result improve the quality of care.

BENEFITS CASE EXAMPLE 2 – HOW DO YOU FANCY A LEAD ROLE ON PANORAMA?

During 2014 evidence of abuse in care homes was revealed by a whistle blower on Panorama. The care home featured on the programme had been deemed 'excellent' by the CQC yet on watching this program many regarded the treatment of these vulnerable adults as despicable acts of mental and physical bullying.  

According to Abelite Consulting Ltd (consultants in cost and change management programmes) the total financial cost to the care company mentioned would have exceeded £250,000, excluding the social cost to victims, their families and the innocent care workers who were unfairly associated to the incident. It also excludes the downstream impact of future lost revenues as a result of brand damage – a phenomenal impact which could have been avoided with a simple HOBRA check on staff.

HOBRA checks minimise the risk of a whistle blower incident as a result of abuse by a ‘Beta’ worker making headlines – a situation which could cost hundreds of thousands £££

The loss of future revenue streams due to the brand damage could also run into hundreds of thousands £££ over several years

Conclusion: By filtering out Beta workers, Online Social Profiling dramatically reduces the risk of a whistle blower incident occurring. The cost impact of an incident is disproportionately high compared to the price of HOBRA checks. Avoiding just 1 such incident would pay for checks on all recruits for more than 10 years!

BENEFITS CASE EXAMPLE 3 – YOUR WORKERS ARE POTENTIALLY A SINGLE POINT OF FAILURE TO YOUR MOST IMPORTANT CARE AND SAFETY OBJECTIVES

Healthcare units are physically designed to provide protection for the vulnerable - to ensure that patient confidentiality exists and to minimise exposure to abuse. This is achieved through a number of ‘checkpoints’ such as physical access controls and regular monitoring of patients by the staff, which means that staff members must be 100% reliable and effective if they are to manage these ‘checkpoints’.

However, this also means that a member of staff represents what is potentially a single point of failure towards meeting the overall care and safety objectives and standards.

Front-of-house staff hold the power to allow third parties access into a building and in some cases into safeguarding areas. Healthcare workers have direct physical access to the patient and their medical records, and what about their opportunities to allow dangerous items, unauthorised medication, illegal drugs, alcohol and more into the building - all of which could become facilitators for unnecessary abuse. Healthcare professionals with access to a patient’s own home pose an even bigger threat.

Given the number of staff involved and the potential ‘points of failure’, as well as the importance to ensure that staff working in the environment do not present a Trojan horse style risk, stringent pre-screening and employment checks are crucial – including a HOBRA for every member of staff.

Of course, technology and operational supervising & monitoring procedures help to minimise the risks, but there is no doubt that every possible procedure should be implemented to ensure care and safety standards are upheld or improved.

Online Social Profiling is a new and innovative way to assess the behaviours of individuals before they are given responsibility for safeguarding roles. This sophistication was simply not possible in the past but it is now an affordable and cost effective tool at the fingertips of Healthcare providers.

Some questions for the Healthcare provider’s CFO to consider:

How would you measure the social or financial cost to an abused patient and their family as a result of a ‘Beta’ worker uncaringly allowing unauthorised persons into a restricted area?

What would be the social or financial cost incurred when a patient suffers abuse due to an item or substance being uncaringly allowed through a checkpoint, or even worse being supplied directly by a ‘Beta’ worker to the patient?

What is clear is that for such a minor investment it’s no wonder that Healthcare providers are adopting Online Social Profiling to enhance and modernise their pre-screening process in order to minimise the risks within their organisations and to protect their stakeholders.

In short, the HOBRA is about Healthcare organisations filling a current gap in pre-employment screening and behaviour assessment by enhancing their processes using up-to-date solutions. A fully compliant and fair solution to help meet one of the most discussed HR challenges of today.

Conclusion: Online Social Profiling will identify in advance those Beta workers who may not be suitable for ‘checkpoint’ roles. This will minimise the number of Beta candidates entering the business and as a result improve the quality of care.

BENEFITS CASE EXAMPLE 4 – COST AVOIDANCE AND EFFICIENCY - ONE FOR THE CFOs and HR DIRECTORS

Let’s use the same case example as above. HOBRA checks deliver an added benefit of reducing the number of disciplinary actions. Assuming the Beta candidates have been allowed into the organisation, and that 67% are found to carry their negative online behaviours into the workplace, this means that the for 100 recruits the HR team and line managers will need to handle 7 new Beta disciplinary cases every year. This is a cost and inefficiency that could possibly have been avoided.

Russell HR Consulting Ltd (specialists in legal and disciplinary cases involving social media) state that just handling the disciplinary process for each Beta case costs a business an average of £18,000 – management time, unfair dismissal claims, re-recruitment fees, re-training costs, team disruption and so on. This excludes any cost to go to tribunal or make compensation payouts.

Applying our example, for 7 Beta cases the cost would equate to an astonishing £126,000 (an average of £1,260 per recruit assuming 100 new employees per year), before tribunal costs.

CFO news - if we prudently assume that in practice as little as 10% of this cost would be avoided directly due to Online Social Profiling (£12,600), this saving would still far outweigh the cost of a service to profile all 100 new starters during a year! An impressive return on investment.

Significant cost avoidance and ROI will be achieved (on average £1,260 per recruit) from profiling new staff and engaging early & openly with Beta candidates

Improved business focus for HR and line managers with a significant reduction in the number of disciplinary action and unfair dismissal claims

Combining the implementation of Online Social Profiling with upgraded staff policies to reflect social media use and screening delivers the added benefit of providing a stronger foundation for smooth handling of incidents involving misuse of social media by employees. Over time, the mutual culture, acceptance, and expectations between employer and employee become aligned and a smooth relationship with social media will exist into the future.

Cultures, values and expectations between employer and employees become aligned - fit for tackling future challenges linked to online activities of staff

Conclusion: Online Social Profiling encourages the modernisation of staff policies to reflect up-to-date technologies and the shift in society’s attitudes towards the use of social media. It reduces the number of disciplinary cases and by diverting these savings to front line care helps to improve quality and standards.

FINAL CONCLUSION

Online Social Profiling is a fully compliant tool that generates significant benefits to the Health and Social Care industry,  delivering efficiency improvements, an innovative way to predict future risks to the care and safety of stakeholders, and high Returns on Investment £££.

It is no wonder that within such an important and constantly scrutinised industry, organisations are increasingly adopting such an innovative tool.

The cost to an abused patient is unquantifiable - never acceptable in any circumstances. If this could be avoided as a result of a simple HOBRA check, who would argue that it should not be an essential care quality procedure?