A Regulatory Response to Healthcare Serial Killing

Abstract

Healthcare serial killing is difficult to detect, which makes protecting patients from this insidious harm challenging. In 2016, Elizabeth Wettlaufer confessed to murdering eight long-term care residents, attempting to murder four others, and assaulting two more while working as a registered nurse in Ontario, Canada ( R v. Wettlaufer, 2017 R v. Wettlaufer OSCJ Court file 05/17 (Agreed statement of facts on guilty plea). Exhibit 1 at Long-term care homes inquiry. https://longtermcareinquiry.ca/en/exhibits/Date: 2017 Google Scholar ). These events prompted the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO), along with partners in the system, to question what can be learned from this tragedy so that the suffering of families and victims was not in vain. Can serial killers be detected and prevented? Where there are potential threats to patient safety, regulators must take action to reduce risk and prevent harm. Determined to learn from the horrendous crimes and contribute to the learning of others, CNO began with an extensive literature review related to healthcare serial killers. From the literature review, this article describes common factors associated with healthcare serial killers, their victims, their crimes, and possible detection. Several recommendations based on the literature are proposed. Healthcare serial killing is difficult to detect, which makes protecting patients from this insidious harm challenging. In 2016, Elizabeth Wettlaufer confessed to murdering eight long-term care residents, attempting to murder four others, and assaulting two more while working as a registered nurse in Ontario, Canada ( R v. Wettlaufer, 2017 R v. Wettlaufer OSCJ Court file 05/17 (Agreed statement of facts on guilty plea). Exhibit 1 at Long-term care homes inquiry. https://longtermcareinquiry.ca/en/exhibits/Date: 2017 Google Scholar ). These events prompted the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO), along with partners in the system, to question what can be learned from this tragedy so that the suffering of families and victims was not in vain. Can serial killers be detected and prevented? Where there are potential threats to patient safety, regulators must take action to reduce risk and prevent harm. Determined to learn from the horrendous crimes and contribute to the learning of others, CNO began with an extensive literature review related to healthcare serial killers. From the literature review, this article describes common factors associated with healthcare serial killers, their victims, their crimes, and possible detection. Several recommendations based on the literature are proposed. Erin Tilley, BHSc, BScN, MN, RN, PMP, FRE, is a Strategy Consultant, College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO), Toronto. Catherine Devion, BA, MLS, is a Librarian, CNO. Anne L. Coghlan, BScN, MScN, RN, is Executive Director and CEO, CNO. Kevin McCarthy, BScN, MPPAL, RN, is Director, Strategy, CNO. Conflict of Interest Compliance Article 3Journal of Nursing Regulation Vol. 12Issue 2PreviewAs is standard in scholarly publishing, NCSBN’s Journal of Nursing Regulation (JNR) requires its authors to disclose any potential conflicts of interest (COI). Although COI information has always been collected by our staff in order to support editors’ review of the paper, it was not our standard practice to publish COI statements in each article. In this issue, JNR is retrospectively publishing the COI statements, which were collected with the below papers at submission, in order to make potential COI’s transparent to readers, as well as editors. Full-Text PDF