auditing call lights?

This is a discussion on auditing call lights? in General Nursing Discussion, part of General Nursing ... Any one else dealing with this at their hospital? We were told that our call lights were being...

Any one else dealing with this at their hospital?

We were told that our call lights were being audited from now on. In ICU we rarely have call lights (we're typically in the pts room or very close by, and the pts can't usually use them).

Now anytime a call light goes off, the unit clerk is supposed to visually locate the nurse and make a note of what he/she was doing when the call light went off and where they were in the unit. I'm trying not to be irate about this, but I'm having a very, very hard time with it.

The whole point of using a call light is that your nurse is not in the room, right? So basically we're going to be reprimanded if we have too many call lights during a shift. Management believes we should either be in our pts room or directly outside their door at all times during a 12-hr shift. We don't have enough computers to chart outside our rooms so we typically chart in the nurses station in the middle of the unit.

Anyone else encounter this?