Nurse tracking devices

Specialties Ob/Gyn

Published

How do you guys feel about wearing tracking devices on your person? Your location displays on a computer screen where you are at inside the hospital at all times.

Thanks

Whatever happened to our basic rights as American citizens. Now the bosses want to track us! Next they'll have electronic monitoring on what we eat, this way if it's not healthy the hospital's insurance can drop you.

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Management won't fix our broken down system, it costs too much. Too bad we herd animals are so naive that we like the system:rolleyes: Our computer system also helped increase our baseline staffing when we went to the union. You may dislike them all you want but when properly used it can be beneficial, whether you agree or not makes no difference since you(general you) do not seem to believe people when they say it makes thing easier. Oh well everyone's entitled to an opinion

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Specializes in ICU,ER.
Management won't fix our broken down system, it costs too much. Too bad we herd animals are so naive that we like the system:rolleyes: Our computer system also helped increase our baseline staffing when we went to the union. You may dislike them all you want but when properly used it can be beneficial, whether you agree or not makes no difference since you(general you) do not seem to believe people when they say it makes thing easier. Oh well everyone's entitled to an opinion

Oh, I don't doubt that it makes things easier. I don't doubt that nurses like it.

I am just pointing out that there is more to it than people realize.

Your management won't "fix" your broken system..... was that after you all went to the union and it actually benefited the nurses? hmmmmm.....

I am sure that if your hospital spent so much money on this system, it probably has some type of warranty?? I am sure the manufacturers of this tracking system wouldn't leave its customer high and dry.

It started costing your hospital some its precious money and it was more benficial to them for it to "go away".

Of course, I am just spectulating here.

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Specializes in Ortho/Neuro.
How do you guys feel about wearing tracking devices on your person? Your location displays on a computer screen where you are at inside the hospital at all times.

Thanks

We wear them and I don't have a problem with it. It is also how we know if our patients are on their call light and how people are able to find us without searching everywhere for us.

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Specializes in Newborn ICU, Trauma ICU, Burn ICU, Peds.
The reply I got: "Nurses don't dictate policy."

And then I was told to stop referring to it as a 'tracking device' and to stop stirring up the staff over it.

~faith,

Timothy.

When the time comes (and it is coming, we are building a new hospital and these are to be included), may I use your letter?

I'm a very proud pot-stirrer on my unit. I prefer to think of it as trying to spur intellectual thought, rather than stirring a pot.

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Specializes in Medical.

I am stunned. I didnt even think a concept like this existed. I opened the thread wondering what the hell it could mean. It must have taken 2 pages of posts for it to sink in. Now I may live in a small town and I know the hospitals I have worked in don't compare to the size of some American hospitals, but you have got to be kidding me. Tracking nurses??????

If there is an emergency you hit the yellow button, a siren loud enough to wake the dead goes off and a call light outside the room lights up. Trust me when that alarm goes off everyone drops everything. If there is a phone call for me then page me, otherwise if its not an emergency take a message. I havent had many problems getting staff assist when it has been required.

Wow, I must really be niave to not know that this is going on. I wonder how long it will take before they try something like this in Australia (it may already be happening, I have just never heard of it) But then I have never worked anywhere that requires you to put a pin number and scan your thumb to get medication out of a drug trolly. (though I can see the benifits of having one)

I feel like it is another 'paternal' method of keeping nurses in line. How dare we think for ourselves. That is a no-no.

How can they simply look at the data and pull you up for spending 20 min with 1 client when 3 of your other clients were ringing their bells. How do they know what or why you were in one room for so long? Are you going to have to justify every action and defend every judgement call you make?

As for tracking nurses on their breaks,, I tell you if I could swear on the board I would. :angryfire What right does anyone have to time how long it takes me to do a wee in the loo. Will they dock my pay if I spend more that 2 min in there? I have a right to privacy and as far as I am concerned to loo is the one place that is sacred. I am entiltled to a break. You are not going to say 'wow thanks for only having a 10min lunch break, thats very kind of you'. No what their going to say is 'how dare you take an extra 5min on your lunch break, this is your first and final warning'

I can see the benifits in regards to large hospitals and finding staff. But overall this concept scares me. I am an independent free thinking professional who can prioritise patient care and assess the amount of time any of my patients need me. Someone said that this smacks of big brother, and I agree.

Wow, I realy am stunned, and my post may not have made alot of sense(its a bit late or early,,, not sure which!) but I am truly horrified at the thought of someone tracking my every move. I would have to agree with some of the others, I would quit before being forced to wear a tracking device. I am not a criminal, you have employed me to do a job so let me do it; without being paranoid about taking 4 min in the loo.

(besides any system can be beaten, people leaving thier trackers in patients rooms prove that. Will they require that this tracker be surgicaly attached to my ankle, and any attemp to remove it will have the federal police on my door to arrest me for unlawful tampering of a critical health data collection device?)

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Specializes in ob high risk, labor and delivery, postp.

Our unit got the Vocera badges last year. Other units in the hospital supposedly trialed them and approved but I think its awful. They are worn clipped to your shirt or on a cord around your neck. They function like a walkie talkie and by voice recognition. Ours don't turn call lights off or on. I insist that somewhere there is an ongoing computer log of where we are, but my coworkers think I'm paranoid. The thing will click at say "can you take a call?" , half the time it will put it through even if you say "NO". Therefore, you're in a pt. room and someone starts talking to you about another pt...talk about breach of confidentiality! Once a coworker got a call right when we were putting a postop in her bed. She answered, thinking it would just be about something else she needed to do, and it was a doctor's office telling her about her own test results which were not poor! Everyone just looked stunned, and I said to the others..I think maybe you can handle this..and took her out of the room for some TLC. (She's a young CNA). Also often the system "doesn't understand" when you try to call someone and so it takes longer...guess what,,,they discovered that sometimes it has difficulty understanding when there is a lot of background noise..especially other voices. (So like an emergency in OB where the pt is screaming, the family is carrying on, and the resident is yelling for things..."would everyone be quiet a minute while I call the attending?". And many of the docs don't want us to page them to the vocera because they don't want to be overheard by bystanders. (we have earphones available..but that is yet one more thing to wear around my neck or in my pocket so I don't have one.) We used to have phones and so you could page someone and go about your work. Now due to all the docs who won't answer to the Vocera, you have to remain at the desk until you're answered. Also, even now when the unit clerk answers the call bell she immediately calls the nurse assigned to the pt, bypassing the CNA completely. They say that they pt stated "i need my nurse" so they call us, interrupting whatever we are in the middle of. With a phone it was much easier..you just didn't answer it, this interrupts much more. A recent, medication safety newsletter talked about being in a quiet place to prevent errors and yet they have new cabinets right at the room to make us have to do the drawing up of meds in the hallway or pt room with people bumping into us and now more interruption. Our system also has "blind spots" where it doesn't read us. One day, I had been in the nursery (a blind spot) talking to the social worker about a problem pt (this is a quiet and private place at the back of that area). I was reprimanded by the charge nurse for "not being logged in", although I clearly was. I demonstrated by having someone right there call me, and my Vocera responded. She insisted that I must have just done so. Another time I went to the restroom and said "no" to an incoming call (which actually worked this time). As I was finishing it again prompted and I said "no" and someone started talking so I hung it up by pushing the button. I washed my hands and went back to the hallway. The total bathroom time was probably three minutes. Anyway, my nurse manager comes tearing around the corner, yelling "why don't you have your Vocera??!! I just stopped and looked at her, then calmly asked "are you yelling at me?" (there were several of us there). I showed her my functioning Vocera and stated that I had just come out of the lav. Now I don't even remember what she wanted although it wasn't any big deal.

I resent having to wear these things. They constantly malfunction. Now they tell us we need to "train" them so that the voice recognition system will work better. (somehow my celll phones system works fine with no training) So we are supposed to go through all the names we call..right like I have the time. Please note..I don't have an accent or anything. And when you mess up a name like say "Call CAROL SMITH" and it says "i didn't understand, I think you said CALL WALTER MAN is his correct" something is wrong with the system!! The phone was much more reliable. Also, only a few people like managers and unit clerks were sent for training. So I never had any instruction on the whole thing. Just was handed to me, told push the button and say call whoever you want to call...Very few people on our staff like it. Everyone likes the phones better. Also, I resent when I have to call out sick and talk to the charge nurse on that thing..I don't want to share with the whole unit!

As others have said, the hospital must be getting something out of it. I mean, its not for better care. We have beds that are 40 years old and don't even have break pedals and proper siderails, we still have to go to the end of the beds to put them up and down, I think if they were interested in making our jobs better that would be my first choice. Or chairs for the nurses station that weren't falling apart. Or actually enough staff to do the job.

Kind of reminds me of how years ago when they took away the 'good friday' holiday...said it was because it wasn't fair since that was a paid holiday while easter was not...so we would instead have one additional personal day. Now I always had planned ahead and requested to work good friday especially if i was working Easter, to take advantage of the "time and 1/2", (we also got an additional day off at a later time which we could request). I knew that the hospital was saving $ and doing us no favors.

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Everyone,

I have read these posts with great interest. Wearing a tracking device is an indignity that should be reserved for prisoners who are under house arrest. The larger question is: How can nurses have more control over the environment in which they work? Nurses, by a long shot, comprise the largest segment of the health care system. How might we have a collective voice that reflects this? Supposedly, there is strength in numbers. Where is this strength? Nursing is my second career, and I am a few months short of finishing my training. I have never been mistreated and abused as I have in both the hospital and at school. No need to itemize, I believe. Is there a solution? How can such a wonderful profession cause its practitioners such psychic distress? There is enough stress in caring for the sick. I'm wondering if anyone has some suggestions about this.

Diahni

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Specializes in ER.

Why doesn't everyone wear them? It would be helpful to look up which docs are in the hospital and wear they are.

Who hasn't wondered where their manager was at a critical moment?

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Why doesn't everyone wear them? It would be helpful to look up which docs are in the hospital and wear they are.

Who hasn't wondered where their manager was at a critical moment?

Good point! But could you imagine a doctor agreeing to a tracking device?

I doubt it. I have another idea - why not put tracking devices on charts? My experience has been that this is what people spend most time looking for. All this electronic stuff have great uses, but the way in which they're used speaks volumes.

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Wow,this vorcera system people are talking about, I don't think I'd like that one either. Our is just a small clip the size of a dollar coin. there is no voice recogniton or anything like that. It doesn't work in the bathroom. If ours was anything like that I am sure we would fight it as well.

As to why doesn't everyone wear them. a) it's not hospital wide, only in L&D, b)the drs don't use them because they are often at the clinic across the street with patients between deliveries unless they are the 24hr inhouse dr so it doesn't work across the street.

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Specializes in Critical Care.

I've used vocera, it's not the same kind of tracking device. Vocera is more like a 'hands off' communication device. It CAN tell you approximately where you are, but to my knowledge, it neither generates recorded data, nor does it give precise enough location data to determine which room you're in, or for how long.

In any case, I HAVE used vocera and the major concern about it is the thing is flimsy, so many of them kept breaking down, that even after the company replaced all the units, they are still no longer being used because they break too often.

If you don't put it on it's necklace, then the battery doesn't seat well and the snap-in connections end up breaking over just a short time. Plus, the speaker cracks and shorts after just a short period of time.

I don't think vocera is as much a 'big brother' issue as it is a technical disaster.

They remind me of those 'cheap' walkie-talkies we all got as kids. Great concept, but after discovering that they were, well, 'cheap', the concept wore off fast.

~faith,

Timothy.

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