I am so angry right now, I don't know where to start. Anyway here it goes. I work in the emergency department of a major trauma center. Last week while checking an admission chart for completeness prior to transferring a patient from the emergency room to the medical floor, I discovered that my manager had written my name (suggesting that the orders had been carried out) on a whole page of admission orders. Orders by the way which are to be carried out on the med-surg floor. When I confronted her about it. She replied that she "writes" her charge nurses' names on all orders that are not signed off.
As with most areas of nursing, staffing is short, however I feel that not only is the manager putting my integrity on the line but also jeopardizing the patient. The patient may suffer because once these orders are noted or signed off it is assumed that they are done.
Additionally, I receive charts on a daily basis with notes telling me that I need to write a note on the chart or sign orders off. Often time I have not even seen the person this chart belongs to. Most nights I work with half the staff (or less) than we are budgeted for which is well under the number needed to safely, adequately and effectively care for the patients we receive.
I know there is something horribly wrong with this. I don't know what to do or who to talk to. Anytime I suggest that I am not going to write anything on a chart of a patient that I have not seen, it is suggested that I am the one with the problem. To add to the insult the doctors have been allowed to discharge patients and the nurses are expected to write a discharge note on a chart of a patient that they did not send home.
