Good Morning,

I am curious about what everyone else’s process is for Tb screening on locums providers.  I find that, unlike traveling nurses or students, locums don’t necessarily have Tb screening done annually.  With traveling nurses and students, it is a requirement of their school/contract to have this done annually.  Therefore, if a student or traveling nurse has had a Tb screen within the last 12 months (and has the documentation) we don’t do anything further.  With locums, we have been treating them like a new hire and going on the MMWR recommendations of testing, thus our screening depends on what documentation they bring us for historical Tb screening.  We then move forward to provide them with an updated screening (example, if they bring us a documented ppd they had 6 months ago, we would plant one more ppd.  If they have no documentation, we would just go straight to the IGRA).  We are questioned why we don’t treat locums like traveling nurses/students with regard to the Tb screening (and accept one Tb screen within the last 12 months).  I appreciate any knowledge you have on the topic.

Thank you,

Karen Morelli RN, BSN, Clinical Manager

WorkHealth LLC

973-7382

kmorelli@emhs.org

BANGOR | PITTSFIELD | PORTLAND | PRESQUE ISLE