As used in the Caregivers Criminal History Screening Act:

A. "applicant" means a person who seeks and is offered employment or contractual service as a caregiver or hospital caregiver with a care provider;

B. "caregiver" means a person, not otherwise required to undergo a nationwide criminal history screening by the New Mexico Children's and Juvenile Facility Criminal Records Screening Act [Chapter 32A, Article 15 NMSA 1978], whose employment or contractual service with a care provider includes direct care or routine and unsupervised physical or financial access to any care recipient served by that provider;

C. "care provider" or "provider" means a skilled nursing facility; an intermediate care facility; a care facility for the mentally retarded; a general acute care facility; a psychiatric facility; a rehabilitation facility; a home health agency; a homemaker agency; a home for the aged or disabled; a group home; an adult foster care home; a guardian service provider; a case management entity that provides services to people with developmental disabilities; a private residence that provides personal care, adult residential care or nursing care for two or more persons not related by blood or marriage to the facility's operator or owner; an adult daycare center; a boarding home; an adult residential care home; a residential service or habilitation service authorized to be reimbursed by medicaid; any licensed or medicaid-certified entity or any program funded by the aging and long-term services department that provides respite, companion or personal care services; or programs funded by the children, youth and families department that provide homemaker or adult daycare services. "Care provider" or "provider" does not include resident care facilities located at or performing services exclusively for any correctional facility, outpatient treatment facilities, diagnostic and treatment facilities, ambulatory surgical centers and facilities, end-stage renal dialysis and treatment facilities, rural health clinics, private physicians' offices or other clinics that operate in the same manner as private physicians' offices in group practice settings;

D. "care recipient" means any person under the care of a provider who has a physical or mental illness, injury or disability or who suffers from any cognitive impairment that restricts or limits the person's activities;

E. "conviction" means a plea, judgment or verdict of guilty, a plea of nolo contendere, an Alford plea or any plea or judgment entered in connection with a suspended sentence, in this state or any other state or jurisdiction;

F. "hospital caregiver" means a person who provides direct unsupervised patient care in an inpatient setting and is not a licensed New Mexico health care professional practicing within the scope of a profession's license;

G. "nationwide criminal history screening" means a criminal history background investigation of an applicant, caregiver or hospital caregiver through the use of fingerprints collected by the department of public safety and submitted to the federal bureau of investigation, resulting in generation of a nationwide criminal history record for that applicant, caregiver or hospital caregiver;

H. "nationwide criminal history record" means information concerning a person's arrests, indictments or other formal criminal charges and any dispositions arising therefrom, including convictions, dismissals, acquittals, sentencing and correctional supervision and collected by criminal justice agencies; and

I. "statewide criminal history screening" means a criminal history background investigation of an applicant or caregiver through the comparison of identifying information with the department of public safety's criminal record repository.

History: Laws 1998, ch. 68, § 3; 1999, ch. 112, § 1; 2005, ch. 226, § 1.

The 2005 amendment, effective June 17, 2005, defined "applicant" in Subsection A to include a hospital caregiver; defined "care provider" or "provider" in Subsection C to include a general acute care facility; added the definition of "conviction" in Subsection E; added the definition of "hospital caregiver" in Subsection F; defined "nationwide criminal history screening" in Subsection G to include a hospital caregiver; deleted from the definition of "nationwide criminal history record" in Subsection H information stored in computerized data bases of the federal bureau of investigation, national law enforcement telecommunications system, department of public safety or the repositories of criminal history or other states; and added the definition of "stateside criminal history screening" in Subsection I.

The 1999 amendment, effective June 18, 1999, in Subsection B, deleted "(32A-15-1 to 32A-15-4)" following "New Mexico Children's and Juvenile Facility Criminal Records Screening Act," and deleted "or volunteer service" following "contractual service"; in Subsection C, divided the existing provisions into two sentences, and in the first sentence inserted "a guardian service provider; a case management entity that provides services to people with developmental disabilities", deleted "providers" following "habilitation service," substituted "or any program" for "programs" and deleted "however, it" from the end, and in the second sentence inserted "'Careprovider' or 'provider'" at the beginning and added "outpatient treatment facilities . . . group practice settings" to the end; and made stylistic changes throughout the section.