JCAHO & legible signatures w/ noting orders

[StayLost, BSN, RN]

One of the big topics of my unit's staff meeting the other day is that now JCAHO is requiring the nurse's signature to be legible. My hospital is suggesting that nurses get stamps made with their name and title to place next to their signature.

Anyone else doing something like this?

[I<3H2O, BSN, RN]

Our hospitalists have stamps they are supposed to use but we haven't been told about this.

[merlee]

I have always believed that everyone who signs a chart should have an assigned ID that needs to be totally legible. There should be no question as to who wrote what.

[morte, LPN, LVN]

what happens when the stamp is lost?

[blue heeler]

they should do this with doctors as well.

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

what happens when the stamp is lost?

get another one.....

[NightOwl0624]

We were told our signature must be legible - printing it is ok if you can't write neatly. And it IS happening with our doctors, too!

[Mike A. Fungin RN]

get another one.....

That's not the point. Anyone could use it and it'd be like signing your name.

[annister]

That's not the point. Anyone could use it and it'd be like signing your name.

I think that since the stamps go along with your signature, they would have your name printed rather than another copy of your "illegible" signature. Besides, anyone could have a stamp made that says someone else's name on it and use it falsely. I guess if it's for clarification and not in place of your signature it wouldn't be an issue. Or...if people would just write in a way that didn't look like a 2 year old got hold of the chart, there wouldn't be an issue either. I can see signing your name in a particular, unique fashion to prevent forging, but your orders, notes? It drives me nuts.

[Popwhizbangz, LPN]

There are always meetings, always with demands, and always JCAHO.

Over time you figure out how to deal with these things, with the least fuss.

Me, I'll sign as always until I get busted (actually my sig used to be much clearer, then one day I moved on to more important things like patients), then I'll come up with a plan B - I've been hearing this legible sig thing for over 10 years now, its always the same urgency, the same paper-appearances-are-more-important-than-reality, and so it goes.....

Despite all the nonsense, life goes on.

[egglady, LPN]

How bout if the docs write orders that are legible?

[shiccy]

There are always meetings, always with demands, and always JCAHO.

Over time you figure out how to deal with these things, with the least fuss.

Me, I'll sign as always until I get busted (actually my sig used to be much clearer, then one day I moved on to more important things like patients), then I'll come up with a plan B - I've been hearing this legible sig thing for over 10 years now, its always the same urgency, the same paper-appearances-are-more-important-than-reality, and so it goes.....

Despite all the nonsense, life goes on.

Couldn't agree with you more. Both my signature AND initials look exactly the same each and every time I write them (sans the VERY infrequent times I screw my signature up). Because of this and the fact that I'm pretty sure they keep *darn* good records of who has which patient on whatever night, it's not that hard to figure out who is who. This paired with the fact that both my sig and initials are *very* individualistic, it's not hard to tell who is who. I have completely given up on making my signature legible. If I were to write legibly, my signature contains 13 characters NOT including title. This would take half of the night with the nights I've had recently. (point in case, I counted 2.66 pages of orders, each with 3 locations for orders, all 8 spaces written by myself, all of which required separate phone calls to separate docs, all at different times, signed by myself.) It would have easily taken me twenty minutes vs. the 15 that it probably took me to scribe all the orders I *DID* receive had I written out my entire name. Not feasible. My name *can* be shortened, but that's not the name on my license, and therefor it's NOT a legal document if I *did*. Ergo, short scribbled but individualistic is the key for me.

PS- Our program that we can look up hospital MD's privaleges now has a scanned in area for each and every doc's sig to be scanned in so we can compare it to notes JUST for instances like this. They *should*, IMHO, however HAVE to rubber stamp everything they put on. Especially since some groups (cardiology, ortho, etc) that have 20+MD's/NP's/PA's in ONE group coming through on any random day.