Was nicht dokumentiert ist, ist nicht gemacht! What is not documented has not been done. Nursing staff in Germany know the rule. In 2014 the magazine of the substitute health insurers reported what it costs. The Federal Statistical Office put the cost of nursing documentation at 2.7 billion euros a year, or 13 percent of a nurse’s working time. The magazine blamed a documentation practice driven by fear of legal liability and by assumed demands of quality inspections. In December 2014, the federal government’s commissioner for nursing, Karl-Josef Laumann, set up a project office to spread a simpler model of documentation. He spoke of “sinnentleertes Kästchenankreuzen,” meaningless box-ticking.
Here the state stepped in to reduce documentation, not to increase it.