Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion and I hope we can agree to disagree if need be. If you are a perfect nurse, please do not read.
I have seen many threads on AN about false documentation and while most replies to these threads have been helpful many members feel the need to judge the OP for false documentation.
In my opinion, many floor nurses are guilty of false documentation, so what gives some of you the audacity to judge and berate another nurse.
How many times have you given a medication outside of that "one hour" window but charted it was given on time?
How many times have you documented your assessment at the time it was supposed to be done, when in reality it was done much later or even much earlier.
For my LTC, nurses are you 100 percent positive that your 20-60 residents were turned and repositioned every 2 hours, or that each one of them was toileted every two hours? Yet you will still initial those two initials in that square box.
When I was a nursing student I would often floor nurses "magically" come up with a patients weight, vital sign, or blood sugar and document, knowing that it was NEVER done. I was so quick to judge as a student and thought their license should be taken right away. After working as a nurse, I realized that while I don't condone that behavior I understand it.
If you answered NEVER to all my questions you are either a super nurse or either you work in a place that have perfect staffing, perfect patients, and perfect coworkers.
The purpose of this thread was for us to sit here and evaluate ourselves before we judge someone for false documentation.
I'm not talking about the nurse that is clearly negligent, lazy, and etc. I'm talking about the nurse like myself who provides competent and quality care to patients but faced with staffing issues that makes it nearly impossible to document every single thing as it is being done.
Unfortunately, some of us work in places where we no longer take care of patients but instead we are taking care of the higher ups in their effort to please the state.
Maybe if we can get rid of some of this customer service BS we can actually have more time for proper and precise documentation.
We are saving lives everyday. I rather give a calcium chew tablet 2 hours late than to ignore my patient that has CHF and having SOB.
So the moral of this story is that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
For all of you nurses that never had to participate in "false documentation" I admire you, envy you and hope to be like you when I grow up.
