deLadyPanther

Nurse got fired because she didn't want to wake the doctor. Perhaps since she/he is the one making the big bucks she/he can now pay the nurse's living expenses ... duh!!!

Write, sign . . . there is really no difference. My name ends up on the chart. On the chart I mentioned above, in the wrong place even. I hate to think where else my name may be. I am talking about patients I had ABSOLUTELY NO CONTACT WITH other than being on duty and in charge. This procedure makes me angry. It does not make me feel inadequate because I know I've done the best I could. This is an example of putting a bandaid on a deep cut. If you treat the problem the symptoms will go away. Staffing is the problem. I have done literally hundreds depositions and I have been to court sometimes based on a single entry I made in the chart. Thanks for the suggestion. I try to get my teamleaders (when they are not a team of one taking care of as many as 30 or more patients during the night) processing admissions, discharges and transfers, to check to see if there are charts with no patients, however they are as overwhelmed as I am most of the time. Which again makes completing charts fall back on the person in charge, a person who may also be a team of one. When staffing is the problem, why should the off-going charge nurse initial a chart of a patient she hadn't seen either?

Many thanks for your reply. I was able to talk to risk management today. Risk management agreed that there is something wrong with this picture. I was given information on how to pursue the issues mentioned. Thanks again. I needed to be reassured that my elevator goes all the way to the top.

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. I am open to all suggestions. Thanks ...