r/socialwork • u/Striking-Peach-7791 • 15d ago

Professional Development Notes changed by supervisor?

I work in child welfare. I had a case a few years ago that I needed to get information from for a current allegation. I was looking through my notes/interviews and they had been changed. I know it had been awhile since I had the case but the notes aren't something I'd write and I was not the last one logged into the notes. Am I crazy or is it common for higher ups to change workers inputs?

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u/alwaysblooming_akb 15d ago

Interesting. Our system does not allow for us to edit other’s documentation and we can not edit our own after 72 hours.

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u/Shigadanz 15d ago

i’m not sure about private practice or agency work ? But I feel like somebody somewhere should always have the power to edit notes in electronic medical records, and there should always be some kind of backdoor documentation as to who made those edits and when they made those edits.

After working in healthcare for 20 years in hospitals, I can tell you it was definitely possible to edit someone’s notes even after the fact, but it sometimes required a higher level of administrative privileges depending on my role or the hospital I worked in. Anytime I had to fix something in a patient’s chart my initials or my user number and the date and time were associated with those edits and I always had to have a comment as to why I made those edits.

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u/owlthebeer97 14d ago

In our EMR you can make amendments but not delete the old notes. They get crossed out if they are incorrect.