Others use keywords to flag which websites employees visit-and block ones that aren’t related to work-or are checking employees’ e-mails and instant messages to make sure they don’t contain inappropriate or proprietary material. Some are measuring keystrokes or using programs that can tell supervisors when a keyboard has been idle for 15 minutes. Companies everywhere are tracking employees’ activities in all kinds of ways in an effort to become more streamlined and productive. In the digital age, however, use of employee monitoring isn’t limited to situations with potential life-or-death consequences, such as those involving patient care and safety. As a result of the monitoring, the hospital improved its supply procedures and became more efficient. For example, the technology helped hospital staff discover that it hadn’t stocked enough medicine at certain stations to last through the night-a situation that was forcing the nurses to spend extra time getting more. While some may find such oversight Orwellian, it serves a purpose that may justify the intrusiveness. The real-time location system can show how often an employee visits a patient’s room and the nurses’ station. The 300 nurses and patient care technicians in selected units wear badges embedded with sensor technology that tracks exactly where they go during a shift. The workforce she oversees is monitored just as Toor was 35 years ago, but today’s monitoring technology offers considerably more precision.
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Rather, her employer used a tape measure when she began her medical career in 1979 as a way to gauge how nurses walked their daily rounds.įlorida Hospital Celebration Health near Orlando.
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Long before activity-tracking gadgets such as Fitbit and FuelBand became popular, Patty Jo Toor’s footsteps were being counted-but not by her.