Nurse tracking devices

Um, this is a joke, right? I mean we're nurses, not prisoners! Who needs to know EXACTLY where I am at all times?!?

I can see having them on babies...but not the nurses.

The ER department at my hospital is trying out a tracking system. They told us it was so pts could not say they have not seen a nurse in so long. Personally I think it's so the hospital knows where we are. I tend to forget mine...opps

We have the tracking devices that you're talking about on our Maternity floor. The nurses there said they like it.

They're in the process of getting a walkie-talkie version of it.

When I did clinicals at Duke Hospital, the nurses there wore these types of devices. They also functioned as "walkie-talkies" to allow the nurse to communicate with the nurse's station. They did help if you needed to ind a nurse quickly, and I don't recall anyone complaining about their use, but I did see how they could serve other nefarious purposes like tracking the amount of time a nurse was off the floor and such.

Here are some pros & cons....

http://www.workrights.org/in_the_news/in_the_news_abcnews.html

My supervisor has talked to us about a similar device that we may start using. Supposedly it will tell tptb who isn't answering lights in a timely fashion and if we spend too much time in the breakroom or the bathroom. All of this is because some bigwig complained that his wife waited too long to have her light answered on another floor. Not sure I will comply with wearing one.

:Melody:

This defenately has some intresting uses!

i can't stand pagers and beepers

i'd have to be implanted with the microchip

Where I used to work all CNAs and RNs had to wear the trackers. It has pro's and cons. The system where I was at was to record and log who was where and for how long, how long it took to answer call lights and who answered it. It also recorded how many trips to the bathroom one made, how many times you went to the breakroom and for how long. There was absolutely no privacy what so ever. I couldn't even take a break in peace unless I left the floor because I would be constantly interupted...and I was a CNA at that time! The trackers we had were supposed to have a staff emerg button on it.....never worked. It only quietly alarmed at the computer so if you weren't at the RN station you didn't know someone was in trouble. Instead of tending to the pt themselves they would look on the computer to see what room I was in and then interrupt me to say so and so needed something. I didn't like it personally. It's no ones business how many times I go to the bathroom in a shift or how often I walk into the breakroom or leave the floor. A lot of us had to go to the breakroom to scrounge for cups, straws, etc. b/c we were never stocked and we constantly had to leave the floor for other supplies because again, we are never stocked. I just didn't like it.....

Why don't they just tag our ears like cattle and be done with it?

Our ED uses them. They have saved our butts a few times when a pt was complaining and said "I haven't seen anyone in here for HOURS!" We were able to get into the system and prove that a nurse had been in there less than an half hour before. Our management swears up and down there aren't sensors in the pottie, or in the break room.

My biggest issue with them is that they are constantly triggering a "staff emergency" in weird areas - placed that no nurses/techs/docs are. So we've all gotten so used to hearing the emergency bell overhead that if someone really does push it as an emergency (there is a button on it to trigger during an emergency situation), people probably wouldn't react to it!