Signing Assessments, is this wrong?

[mdsmadness]

In our facility, the SSD, Activities, Dietary and Therapy give me there sections on paper, they have the resident name, assessment type and ARD on their sections. I key it in and complete the MDS. The R2b date is the day that it is keyed into the computer and complete. I sign off on the sections that I do and date the same as the R2b, the other IDT's sign off on their sections and date same R2b but sometimes they are not signing it that day, is this considered back dating? If so, should they be signing the actual date they review it? I shred the info they give me once it is signed off by them. Also the RN never dates after she signs because the R2b date is already printed where she signs. Is this correct?

[Rexie68]

i think i mentioned how we do it at my facility in another post, but i'll repeat here. i know that some disagree with it, but umr and doh have never had a problem. we date the working copy for the day we do it; our assistant enters the info into the computer when when we've all completed it; it's printed out, and then we all sign the computer copy with the date that we put on the working (or "hard") copy. the computer copy goes into the chart. we save the working copy in our office. some call this back-dating, but, again, we're only signing the computer copy for the same date that we signed the hard copy and no agency has had a problem with it. we make no bones about the fact that we do it this way, and, in fact, when umr has a question about something, i pull out the working copy to show what i might have scribbled on the side, etc. it's helped me out of a jam a few times, when i've written a little note to myself, such as "see nurses note of 07/29/08 for in depth description of wound, behavior, etc." umr also has found this helpful and sees no reason for us to stop doing it this way. i've hesitated to post this again, because others disagree, but i'm putting it out there because i'm sure there are many facilities that do it this way. you're signing the date that you did the mds....that's what we're supposed to do!!