telephone orders

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Would you sign a telephone order that another nurse wrote and left flagged on your chart?

Excluding orders written by NP.

Specializes in MSP, Informatics.
Would you sign a telephone order that another nurse wrote and left flagged on your chart?

Excluding orders written by NP.

Sign it as in how? we take TP orders, write who it was from, our name, read back. ex

Colace 100 mg po TID

T.O. Dr. So-and-so/ My Name RN R.B 2/7/10 1004

then whomever checks that order on the chart signs it off. (makes sure it gets on the MAR kardex, etc...) If I am the one calling the Dr, I may get phone orders for patients that are not my own... but I put the order on the chart. I would not be the one that would follow up on those orders. The chart goes to the Unit clerk, then she gives it to the RN in charge of that patient to sign off. you have to sign that you took the order, but not that it was completed, since that could take hours.

It would depend on the policy at your hospital, and how you do things.

I meant sign it as if you received it. I just think if you talked to md , you sign it and order it, and put it on mar.

I did not talk to md I did not take the order, so I do not want to sign it as if I did. One nurse has done this a couple of times and I did end up telling her she needed to sign her own orders. I mean why would you not sign an order you received? And no it was not an accident she flagged it like an md or np would.

Specializes in PICU, NICU, L&D, Public Health, Hospice.

Back in the day, I was taught that we should not ever sign our names for an order which we did not personally receive...particularly a telephone or verbal order.

It is sort of tantamount to playing the parlor game "telephone", if you get enough people involved in a communication it WILL be wrong at the end. There are plenty of ways to get into trouble without taking this chance...I would recommend that you think twice about signing another nurse's telephone or verbal orders unless you yourself overheard (correctly) what the doctor said. Your license could be jeopardized if there was an error.

I understand that T.O.s not signed are orders that the nurse acknowledges that were given but not necessarily executed, right?

T.O.s unsigned is inadvertently forgotten to be signed but isn't this a reportable offense to the supervisor?

Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.

Yes, tewdles, I was taught that, too. It's just too easy to get it wrong over the phone which is also compounded sometimes by doctors with heavy foreign accents getting po-ed when the nurse asks them to repeat it until he or she is sure. When we're dealing with micrograms, milligrams, and decimal points that could kill a person if wrong, heck yeah I want to hear it if I sign it!!

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