Big Brother Nursing Employers: Potential Misuse of RFID Devices

The January 2008 edition of the ABA Journal, the official journal of the American Bar Association, quotes Rachel Minter, a solo practitioner in New York City who represents employees and unions. Minter stated she has fielded questios from nursing union members regarding a hospital's use of identification badges embedded with RFID (radio frequency identification).

According to Minter, Hospital management justified RFID as a way to find nurses without using noisy intercom systems. The Nursing union argues it amounts to an invasion of privacy for the nurses because mangement is able to track the every move of a nurse at the hospital.

Minter pondered "Do you have a reasonable expectation of privacy if you are a nurse going from room to room?" Your supervisor could follow you into patient rooms/ But what about following you in the break room?"

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What's your opinion? Language in a collective bargaining agreement stipulating the parameters of use of said data and excluding the use of any data gathered by the RFID in workplace investigations and disciplinary action of nurses would be a start.

For nurses who work in non-collective bargaining settings, which happens to be the largest percentage of RNs and LPNs in the United States, the options are limited in this area.