Indoor Positioning and Digital Management: Emerging Surveillance Regimes in Hospitals

Not all surveillance is intended as such. In spite of intentions, the valence of some technological systems toward surveillance should not be underestimated. Within the domain of health care, there has been an increased emphasis on the use of information and communication technologies to streamline processes by centralizing patients’ records, locating medical equipment, and tracking hospital sta! and patients. Although these changes are o"en couched in terms of improving patient care, the direct bene#ts to patients are o"en considered too “so"” to measure compared to a “hard” economic outcome like hospitals’ return on investment. What is rarely mentioned—and then only in the most guarded terms—is the tendency of these technologies to function as surveillance systems that monitor the activities of patients and sta!, particularly nurses. In this essay, I examine the emergence of radio frequency identi#cation (RFID) as one such technology within hospital settings. First, I describe the technology and its applications outside of and within health care. Next, I examine the implications of RFID technological systems on existing hospital infrastructures, paying particular attention to their e!ects on existing divisions of labor. Finally, to highlight the politics of surveillance, I analyze the intersection between discourses of “indoor positioning” and