Drug Testing of Health Care Workers: Toward a Coherent Hospital Policy

Abstract

Spurred by President Ronald Reagan's 1986 Executive Order seeking to establish a drug-free workplace and by the growing empirical data purporting to show a loss of time, money and productivity due to the adverse effects of substance abuse, employers in both the public and private sector have implemented drug testing programs on an unprecedented scale. Today, employers subject an estimated thirty million workers to some type of employer-sponsored drug and alcohol testing in the workplace. A 1996 survey by the American Management Association reports that eighty-one percent of all major corporations now employ some type of drug testing program, a fourfold increase in nine years.While drag testing in the health care sector is rising, it still lags behind other industries. When a hospital does test, it often exempts a crucial job classification—physicians. This Article's thesis centers on the potential liability hospitals face by failing to include drug testing in its hiring and credentialing process.