#lab rfid

[lostintransist]

Broken Beyond Bearing | Part 3

-.-. …. .. .-.. -.. .-. . -. / -.— —- ..- -. —. / .- … / - . -.

Part 1 found here | AO3

CW: A/B/O sexism I guess is what we should call this? Trauma reactions to doctors, awful in world politics.

Keeping his eyes on you Kyle’s concern rises with each shallow breath you suck between your teeth.

The nurse had been watching and held the door open as he directed Kyle to the first room on the right. Settling your body flat on the table he steps back, trying to give the nurse room to move. With two chairs, a small counter and a sink, and a ‘calming’ green on the walls the room looks exactly like he expects it to.

“How long ago was the exposure?” The nurse is taking your vitals and you stiffen as if your body hit rigor. “Ma’am if you don’t relax this is going to take longer.”

“Less than thirty minutes,” Kyle answers coolly.

The whine, primal and terrified, that comes from your throat as the blood pressure cuff is tightening has Kyle moving to where your head lays. Running the back of his knuckles down your cheeks he whispers to you. The scent of your fear, clear and uncontaminated with whatever afflicted you normally, flooded the room.

“Hey, hey. I’m here. You’re not alone. Everything will be okay.”

The nurse, an alpha by scent, makes a noise that pulls Kyle to look at him. The nurse, Johnson by the glance to his name tag, keeps his eyes on the monitor taking your blood pressure and pulse. Kyle focuses back on you. Your body regains mobility as the cuff is removed, eyes rolling like a horse looking for a place to run.

“Her vitals are all looking normal, the doctor will be in shortly,” Johnson shuts the door behind him. He must not be far enough away from the door when he starts talking to someone else. “Beta bitch in room one has track marks up both arms. I knew betas died from drugs more than any other gender but it’s wild to see that out here.”

Kyle would have stormed out the door to rip into the man if your hands hadn’t slapped into his, holding them tight. Pulling yourself upright from the reclined position you tuck your knees to your chest and rest your chin atop them. Letting go of his hands you curl them around your legs.

Sitting on a chair positioned next to the bed Kyle looks up at you, trying to catch your eyes.

Even when he could see the streaks of color through your irises no recognition lit your features. Concerned, Kyle stays sitting on the bed with you watching each breath and twitch. Nothing changes until the door opens with a faint knock.

“My name is Doctor Chen. Can you tell me what happened today?”

Like an automaton, you uncurl from your crunched position. Legs folded you straighten your back and rest your forearms on your knees palms aimed at the ceiling. Kyle had seen poses similar in meditation videos he would watch sometimes to give his mind a moment to relax. There is no peace in your pose. The width of your open eyes and the shallowness of your breath all remind him of victims he has saved from torture.

Memories that left their marks on his bones should not be reflected in your posture, he faced evil abroad and in the mirror to keep people like you safe.

He glanced at the man, dark hair, light blue scrubs, thick-rimmed glasses, and a white overcoat Kyle mostly associated with lab work. A quick draw of breath and Kyle marked him as an alpha. Dr. Chen did not look at you once, eyes staying firmly on him.

“We had an exposure to an allergen.”

Dr. Chen nodded once and sat on the small, wheeled stool that Kyle only ever saw in doctor’s offices. He wondered if they had to special order them or if they appeared in the building like fairies to offers of milk and bread. The man logged into his computer with a swipe of his name tag to an RFID reader and tapped a few buttons before turning to look at Kyle again.

“Do you know what the allergy was in reaction to?” He adjusts his glasses further up his nose.

“We don’t and would like to get some testing. Does this clinic do testing?” Kyle asked; all of his medical care happened on base.

Dr. Chen’s eyes glanced at you for the first time with a flare of his nose as he took in the fear salting the room with your uniquely beta scent. Kyle knew deeper than his marrow that you could turn off his brain and any explosive rage that he dealt with being an alpha. You didn’t use that now, but by the gods, he wished you would. The flash of disgust that whipped across Dr. Chen’s face ignited the soul-deep rage that existed with being an alpha.

“Dr. Chen,” the darkness, power, in Kyle’s voice brought the doctor’s face to him. “You will treat my wife with respect or I will ensure you don’t live to regret it.”

The cloying, nose-coating scent of Dr. Chen’s alpha rising to meet the challenge filled Kyle’s nose. He let the monster rise in his eyes, keeping his scent muted. Military training had to be good for something beyond the battlefield.

Kyle stands, placing his body between the doctor and the bed where you sit. Arms crossed and shoulders spread wide he used the mass of his bulk to show the barrier he could be. He didn’t know you, but Kate had seen something that prompted her to give them the care over you. You would not feel any harm if he could prevent it. You started to rock softly, eyes still unseeing. Then you begin to hum Edelweiss, effectively breaking the tension. Chen lost the staring match when he glanced at you.

“Do your job doctor, so I don’t have to.”

“That is out of line Mr—”

“Sergeant, special forces.”

Dr. Chen’s eyes narrowed but accepted the correction.

“Sergeant, your wife is doing fine by her visual inspection and her vitals agree. This clinic does not offer allergy testing but there are a few private practices here that you can call.” He turned back to his computer, typing in what Kyle assumed to be a summary of the visit today. “Most of what we do here for allergies is to stop the reaction and watch for any adverse effects.”

“I will need a copy of that report for our records,” Kyle stated it like a command he would give a private or a trainee. A firm ‘this is the course of action you will be taking’ that did not leave any room for questions or disobedience.

If Dr. Chen thought of arguing with Kyle, he kept it to himself. He left shortly after with a comment that Johnson would be in soon with the paperwork he requested. That is how Johnny found them, Kyle’s arms crossed and holding back his rage and you the juxtaposition of a peaceful body and an absent mind.

“You are more than you appear, wife,” Johnny took your hand, curling fingers around palms.

They wait in the cadence of your voice for nearly five minutes before Johnson appears, papers in hand. Kyle snaps a vice grip around the man’s wrist, pulling him close.

“Johnson. If I hear you telling tales about betas, and more specifically about my wife I will paint the walls of your room with colors not even crime techs will unsee.”

The man under his eyes paled quite impressively. Plucking the papers from his hand Kyle dropped Johnson’s hand and turned to his pack mate and partner in crime. Johnny’s thumb traced a track along the back of your hand as he watched the interaction play out before him.

“Can you carry her to the truck?”

Johnny’s eyes flicked as he watched the nurse flee from the room.

“Yeah. Up you pop bonnie,” he settled one arm over his shoulder and then the other before lifting you under the thighs to settle around his waist.

Still, you hummed, no life in your form. Kyle had a glare and a harsh, nose-blistering scent of rage for anyone who looked too long. Johnny settled in the back seat with you, buckling you into the middle so he could keep a hand on you and Kyle could check on you in the review mirror.

The drive home is tense, filled only with Kyle’s quiet mutterings about inexperienced winter drivers. When he turns onto the path home Johnny asks a question.

“What the hell happened in the clinic when I was on the phone with John?”

The steering wheel creaks under the pressure of Kyle’s hands.

“Nurse and doctor had some awful things to say about our wife, called her a drug addict, and couldn’t keep professional.”

“The hell? Why did they do that?” Johnny’s face in the rearview is tight with angry concern.

“It’s due to the beta laws that went into place ten…eleven? Yeah maybe eleven years ago.” Your voice is an unexpected addition to the conversation.

Kyle slows to a stop in the snow, throwing the truck in park and turning to look at you.

“What beta laws?”

He knows his gaze is harsh when you flinch back. Johnny wraps an arm around you and you settle a bit.

“There were laws on the books for a long time that weren’t really enforced,” you swallow and look from man to man before staring at your knees and continuing. “About how betas weren’t allowed the same personhood rights as alphas and omegas due to the lack of either consistent rut or heat. Apparently, the ability to do both is scary to the government. Several years back a group successfully passed a new law that said basically that betas should be treated like children, unable to sign paperwork without an approving authority, have bank accounts alone, apply for a credit card, or passport, you name it without the approval of an alpha or omega. In some places it went beyond that, stripping beta’s of all rights.”

Johnny muttered under his breath something that sounded like ‘What the fuck’ but Kyle kept his eyes on you.

“What happened to you?” His whisper hardens on your skin like ice.

There is no weak, scared beta woman here, only a beast that would peel him apart if he pushed. He didn’t scare her, but doctors did.

“No.”

Nodding once and accepting the answer Kyle turned back to driving. He would discuss this all with the guys after they had settled into bed. The interactions with the clinic staff were nothing like he had ever experienced before. Though as he thought of it he couldn’t remember the last time he had worked with a beta.

Simon and John step onto the porch as Kyle parks, as if they had been keeping watch for them.

The four men set about their tasks, hauling everything inside. You follow when Johnny reaches into the back seat and helps you out, hand tucked in his as he carries in a few bags. Simon sets about setting up the bed they picked for your room. Johnny settles you at the table, laughing and joking at you as he prepares a plate of food. Kyle and John set to work on creating the dresser. They don’t hear you laugh at any of Johnny’s stories but John points to you once and Kyle catches a glimpse of a smile. The sun slips away into the trees as each of the men finishes their task. Once the bed is made and the mattress settled on the frame John and Kyle lift the dresser into place.

The three men who had built things collapsed onto the couch facing the back wall of windows into the woods. Simon is settled between John and Kyle an arm dropped around each of them. You are standing on the back porch, head tilted back as you look at the ink-dark sky. The coat and boots you wear are those picked up today. Kyle didn’t think to wonder where Johnny had gone until he bounced down the steps with a bright bundle of fabric over one shoulder as he shoved a beanie on his head.

“Where ya going, Johnny?” Simon pitches his voice to carry but not to shout.

“Gonna give our wife a gift,” he winks at his lovers and pops out the back door.

Simon tightens the arm around Kyle.

“He loves you. That won’t change if he chooses to love someone new as well,” John murmured.

Kyle looked over at John who lay his head fully on Simon, nose buried in the scent gland at his neck. John licks the length of the gland causing Simon to let out a short whine.

Glancing back out to the back porch Kyle watches Johnny settle a shawl across your shoulders and sees in your profile confusion, hesitance. When you look down and clutch the shawl tight to your chest Kyle could only call the look on your face concerned acceptance. Johnny grinned at you like the sun had risen.

“To bed Simon, I can feel you grumble. Your rut starts soon. Let Johnny get our wife settled and let Kyle and I get you into bed.” John pushes up from the couch pulling Simon with him.

Kyle stands as well, eyes drifting to you and Johnny one last time. Standing side by side the two stare at the stars. John calls him from his observations and Kyle starts up the stairs after his lovers. His other lover will arrive with time.

Broken Masterlist | Masterlist

@lucienofthelakes @gg-trini @talia-the-gemini @thriving-n-jiving @z-wantstowrite @asialovesyou09 @literallegendicon @canthavetoomuchchaos @reinekoya @jsptmoche @demothers-empty-blog @hbaasaad

[mariacallous]

Scan the online brochures of companies who sell workplace monitoring tech and you’d think the average American worker was a renegade poised to take their employer down at the next opportunity. “Nearly half of US employees admit to time theft!” “Biometric readers for enhanced accuracy!” “Offer staff benefits in a controlled way with Vending Machine Access!”

A new wave of return-to-office mandates has arrived since the New Year, including at JP Morgan Chase, leading advertising agency WPP, and Amazon—not to mention President Trump’s late January directive to the heads of federal agencies to “terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person … on a full-time basis.” Five years on from the pandemic, when the world showed how effectively many roles could be performed remotely or flexibly, what’s caused the sudden change of heart?

“There’s two things happening,” says global industry analyst Josh Bersin, who is based in California. “The economy is actually slowing down, so companies are hiring less. So there is a trend toward productivity in general, and then AI has forced virtually every company to reallocate resources toward AI projects.

“The expectation amongst CEOs is that’s going to eliminate a lot of jobs. A lot of these back-to-work mandates are due to frustration that both of those initiatives are hard to measure or hard to do when we don’t know what people are doing at home.”

The question is, what exactly are we returning to?

Take any consumer tech buzzword of the 21st century and chances are it’s already being widely used across the US to monitor time, attendance and, in some cases, the productivity of workers, in sectors such as manufacturing, retail, and fast food chains: RFID badges, GPS time clock apps, NFC apps, QR code clocking-in, Apple Watch badges, and palm, face, eye, voice, and finger scanners. Biometric scanners have long been sold to companies as a way to avoid hourly workers “buddy punching” for each other at the start and end of shifts—so-called “time theft.” A return-to-office mandate and its enforcement opens the door for similar scenarios for salaried staff.

Track and Trace

The latest, deluxe end point of these time and attendance tchotchkes and apps is something like Austin-headquartered HID’s OmniKey platform. Designed for factories, hospitals, universities and offices, this is essentially an all-encompassing RFID log-in and security system for employees, via smart cards, smartphone wallets, and wearables. These will not only monitor turnstile entrances, exits, and floor access by way of elevators but also parking, the use of meeting rooms, the cafeteria, printers, lockers, and yes, vending machine access.

These technologies, and more sophisticated worker location- and behavior-tracking systems, are expanding from blue-collar jobs to pink-collar industries and even white-collar office settings. Depending on the survey, approximately 70 to 80 percent of large US employers now use some form of employee monitoring, and the likes of PwC have explicitly told workers that managers will be tracking their location to enforce a three-day office week policy.

“Several of these earlier technologies, like RFID sensors and low-tech barcode scanners, have been used in manufacturing, in warehouses, or in other settings for some time,” says Wolfie Christl, a researcher of workplace surveillance for Cracked Labs, a nonprofit based in Vienna, Austria. “We’re moving toward the use of all kinds of sensor data, and this kind of technology is certainly now moving into the offices. However, I think for many of these, it’s questionable whether they really make sense there.”

What’s new, at least to the recent pandemic age of hybrid working, is the extent to which workers can now be tracked inside office buildings. Cracked Labs published a frankly terrifying 25-page case study report in November 2024 showing how systems of wireless networking, motion sensors, and Bluetooth beacons, whether intentionally or as a byproduct of their capabilities, can provide “behavioral monitoring and profiling” in office settings.

The project breaks the tech down into two categories: The first is technology that tracks desk presence and room occupancy, and the second monitors the indoor location, movement, and behavior of the people working inside the building.

To start with desk and room occupancy, Spacewell offers a mix of motion sensors installed under desks, in ceilings, and at doorways in “office spaces” and heat sensors and low-resolution visual sensors to show which desks and rooms are being used. Both real-time and trend data are available to managers via its “live data floorplan,” and the sensors also capture temperature, environmental, light intensity, and humidity data.

The Swiss-headquartered Locatee, meanwhile, uses existing badge and device data via Wi-Fi and LAN to continuously monitor clocking in and clocking out, time spent by workers at desks and on specific floors, and the number of hours and days spent by employees at the office per week. While the software displays aggregate rather than individual personal employee data to company executives, the Cracked Labs report points out that Locatee offers a segmented team analytics report which “reveals data on small groups.”

As more companies return to the office, the interest in this idea of “optimized” working spaces is growing fast. According to S&S Insider’s early 2025 analysis, the connected office was worth $43 billion in 2023 and will grow to $122.5 billion by 2032. Alongside this, IndustryARC predicts there will be a $4.5 billion employee-monitoring-technology market, mostly in North America, by 2026—the only issue being that the crossover between the two is blurry at best.

At the end of January, Logitech showed off its millimeter-wave radar Spot sensors, which are designed to allow employers to monitor whether rooms are being used and which rooms in the building are used the most. A Logitech rep told The Verge that the peel-and-stick devices, which also monitor VOCs, temperature, and humidity, could theoretically estimate the general placement of people in a meeting room.

As Christl explains, because of the functionality that these types of sensor-based systems offer, there is the very real possibility of a creep from legitimate applications, such as managing energy use, worker health and safety, and ensuring sufficient office resources into more intrusive purposes.

“For me, the main issue is that if companies use highly sensitive data like tracking the location of employees’ devices and smartphones indoors or even use motion detectors indoors,” he says, “then there must be totally reliable safeguards that this data is not being used for any other purposes.”

Big Brother Is Watching

This warning becomes even more pressing where workers’ indoor location, movement, and behavior are concerned. Cisco’s Spaces cloud platform has digitized 11 billion square feet of enterprise locations, producing 24.7 trillion location data points. The Spaces system is used by more than 8,800 businesses worldwide and is deployed by the likes of InterContinental Hotels Group, WeWork, the NHS Foundation, and San Jose State University, according to Cisco’s website.

While it has applications for retailers, restaurants, hotels, and event venues, many of its features are designed to function in office environments, including meeting room management and occupancy monitoring. Spaces is designed as a comprehensive, all-seeing eye into how employees (and customers and visitors, depending on the setting) and their connected devices, equipment, or “assets” move through physical spaces.

Cisco has achieved this by using its existing wireless infrastructure and combining data from Wi-Fi access points with Bluetooth tracking. Spaces offers employers both real-time views and historical data dashboards. The use cases? Everything from meeting-room scheduling and optimizing cleaning schedules to more invasive dashboards on employees’ entry and exit times, the duration of staff workdays, visit durations by floor, and other “behavior metrics.” This includes those related to performance, a feature pitched at manufacturing sites.

Some of these analytics use aggregate data, but Cracked Labs details how Spaces goes beyond this into personal data, with device usernames and identifiers that make it possible to single out individuals. While the ability to protect privacy by using MAC randomization is there, Cisco emphasizes that this makes indoor movement analytics “unreliable” and other applications impossible—leaving companies to make that decision themselves.

Management even has the ability to send employees nudge-style alerts based on their location in the building. An IBM application, based on Cisco’s underlying technology, offers to spot anomalies in occupancy patterns and send notifications to workers or their managers based on what it finds. Cisco’s Spaces can also incorporate video footage from Cisco security cameras and WebEx video conferencing hardware into the overall system of indoor movement monitoring; another example of function creep from security to employee tracking in the workplace.

“Cisco is simply everywhere. As soon as employers start to repurpose data that is being collected from networking or IT infrastructure, this quickly becomes very dangerous, from my perspective.” says Christl. “With this kind of indoor location tracking technology based on its Wi-Fi networks, I think that a vendor as major as Cisco has a responsibility to ensure it doesn’t suggest or market solutions that are really irresponsible to employers.

“I would consider any productivity and performance tracking very problematic when based on this kind of intrusive behavioral data.” WIRED approached Cisco for comment but didn’t receive a response before publication.

Cisco isn't alone in this, though. Similar to Spaces, Juniper’s Mist offers an indoor tracking system that uses both Wi-Fi networks and Bluetooth beacons to locate people, connected devices, and Bluetooth tagged badges on a real-time map, with the option of up to 13 months of historical data on worker behavior.

Juniper’s offering, for workplaces including offices, hospitals, manufacturing sites, and retailers, is so precise that it is able to provide records of employees’ device names, together with the exact enter and exit times and duration of visits between “zones” in offices—including one labeled “break area/kitchen” in a demo. Yikes.

For each of these systems, a range of different applications is functionally possible, and some which raise labor-law concerns. “A worst-case scenario would be that management wants to fire someone and then starts looking into historical records trying to find some misconduct,” says Christl. "If it’s necessary to investigate employees, then there should be a procedure where, for example, a worker representative is looking into the fine-grained behavioral data together with management. This would be another safeguard to prevent misuse.”

Above and Beyond?

If warehouse-style tracking has the potential for management overkill in office settings, it makes even less sense in service and health care jobs, and American unions are now pushing for more access to data and quotas used in disciplinary action. Elizabeth Anderson, professor of public philosophy at the University of Michigan and the author of Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives, describes how black-box algorithm-driven management and monitoring affects not just the day-to-day of nursing staff but also their sense of work and value.

“Surveillance and this idea of time theft, it’s all connected to this idea of wasting time,” she explains. “Essentially all relational work is considered inefficient. In a memory care unit, for example, the system will say how long to give a patient breakfast, how many minutes to get them dressed, and so forth.

“Maybe an Alzheimer’s patient is frightened, so a nurse has to spend some time calming them down, or perhaps they have lost some ability overnight. That’s not one of the discrete physical tasks that can be measured. Most of the job is helping that person cope with declining faculties; it takes time for that, for people to read your emotions and respond appropriately. What you get is massive moral injury with this notion of efficiency.”

This kind of monitoring extends to service workers, including servers in restaurants and cleaning staff, according to a 2023 Cracked Labs’ report into retail and hospitality. Software developed by Oracle is used to, among other applications, rate and rank servers based on speed, sales, timekeeping around breaks, and how many tips they receive. Similar Oracle software that monitors mobile workers such as housekeepers and cleaners in hotels uses a timer for app-based micromanagement—for instance, “you have two minutes for this room, and there are four tasks.”

As Christl explains, this simply doesn’t work in practice. “People have to struggle to combine what they really do with this kind of rigid, digital system. And it’s not easy to standardize work like talking to patients and other kinds of affective work, like how friendly you are as a waiter. This is a major problem. These systems cannot represent the work that is being done accurately.”

But can knowledge work done in offices ever be effectively measured and assessed either? In an episode of his podcast in January, host Ezra Klein battled his own feelings about having many of his best creative ideas at a café down the street from where he lives rather than in The New York Times’ Manhattan offices. Anderson agrees that creativity often has to find its own path.

“Say there’s a webcam tracking your eyes to make sure you’re looking at the screen,” she says. “We know that daydreaming a little can actually help people come up with creative ideas. Just letting your mind wander is incredibly useful for productivity overall, but that requires some time looking around or out the window. The software connected to your camera is saying you’re off-duty—that you’re wasting time. Nobody’s mind can keep concentrated for the whole work day, but you don’t even want that from a productivity point of view.”

Even for roles where it might make more methodological sense to track discrete physical tasks, there can be negative consequences of nonstop monitoring. Anderson points to a scene in Erik Gandini’s 2023 documentary After Work that shows an Amazon delivery driver who is monitored, via camera, for their driving, delivery quotas, and even getting dinged for using Spotify in the van.

“It’s very tightly regulated and super, super intrusive, and it’s all based on distrust as the starting point,” she says. “What these tech bros don’t understand is that if you install surveillance technology, which is all about distrusting the workers, there is a deep feature of human psychology that is reciprocity. If you don’t trust me, I’m not going to trust you. You think an employee who doesn’t trust the boss is going to be working with the same enthusiasm? I don’t think so.”

Trust Issues

The fixes, then, might be in the leadership itself, not more data dashboards. “Our research shows that excessive monitoring in the workplace can damage trust, have a negative impact on morale, and cause stress and anxiety,” says Hayfa Mohdzaini, senior policy and practice adviser for technology at the CIPD, the UK’s professional body for HR, learning, and development. “Employers might achieve better productivity by investing in line manager training and ensuring employees feel supported with reasonable expectations around office attendance and manageable workloads.”

A 2023 Pew Research study found that 56 percent of US workers were opposed to the use of AI to keep track of when employees were at their desks, and 61 percent were against tracking employees’ movements while they work.

This dropped to just 51 percent of workers who were opposed to recording work done on company computers, through the use of a kind of corporate “spyware” often accepted by staff in the private sector. As Josh Bersin puts it, “Yes, the company can read your emails” with platforms such as Teramind, even including “sentiment analysis” of employee messages.

Snooping on files, emails, and digital chats takes on new significance when it comes to government workers, though. New reporting from WIRED, based on conversations with employees at 13 federal agencies, reveals the extent to Elon Musk’s DOGE team’s surveillance: software including Google’s Gemini AI chatbot, a Dynatrace extension, and security tool Splunk have been added to government computers in recent weeks, and some people have felt they can’t speak freely on recorded and transcribed Microsoft Teams calls. Various agencies already use Everfox software and Dtex’s Intercept system, which generates individual risk scores for workers based on websites and files accessed.

Alongside mass layoffs and furloughs over the past four weeks, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has also, according to CBS News and NPR reports, gone into multiple agencies in February with the theater and bombast of full X-ray security screenings replacing entry badges at Washington, DC, headquarters. That’s alongside managers telling staff that their logging in and out of devices, swiping in and out of workspaces, and all of their digital work chats will be “closely monitored” going forward.

“Maybe they’re trying to make a big deal out of it to scare people right now,” says Bersin. “The federal government is using back-to-work as an excuse to lay off a bunch of people.”

DOGE staff have reportedly even added keylogger software to government computers to track everything employees type, with staff concerned that anyone using keywords related to progressive thinking or "disloyalty” to Trump could be targeted—not to mention the security risks it introduces for those working on sensitive projects. As one worker told NPR, it feels “Soviet-style” and “Orwellian” with “nonstop monitoring.” Anderson describes the overall DOGE playbook as a series of “deeply intrusive invasions of privacy.”

Alternate Realities

But what protections are out there for employees? Certain states, such as New York and Illinois, do offer strong privacy protections against, for example, unnecessary biometric tracking in the private sector, and California’s Consumer Privacy Act covers workers as well as consumers. Overall, though, the lack of federal-level labor law in this area makes the US something of an alternate reality to what is legal in the UK and Europe.

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act in the US allows employee monitoring for legitimate business reasons and with the worker’s consent. In Europe, Algorithm Watch has made country analyses for workplace surveillance in the UK, Italy, Sweden, and Poland. To take one high-profile example of the stark difference: In early 2024, Serco was ordered by the UK's privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), to stop using face recognition and fingerprint scanning systems, designed by Shopworks, to track the time and attendance of 2,000 staff across 38 leisure centers around the country. This new guidance led to more companies reviewing or cutting the technology altogether, including Virgin Active, which pulled similar biometric employee monitoring systems from 30-plus sites.

Despite a lack of comprehensive privacy rights in the US, though, worker protest, union organizing, and media coverage can provide a firewall against some office surveillance schemes. Unions such as the Service Employees International Union are pushing for laws to protect workers from black-box algorithms dictating the pace of output.

In December, Boeing scrapped a pilot of employee monitoring at offices in Missouri and Washington, which was based on a system of infrared motion sensors and VuSensor cameras installed in ceilings, made by Ohio-based Avuity. The U-turn came after a Boeing employee leaked an internal PowerPoint presentation on the occupancy- and headcount-tracking technology to The Seattle Times. In a matter of weeks, Boeing confirmed that managers would remove all the sensors that had been installed to date.

Under-desk sensors, in particular, have received high-profile backlash, perhaps because they are such an obvious piece of surveillance hardware rather than simply software designed to record work done on company machines. In the fall of 2022, students at Northeastern University hacked and removed under-desk sensors produced by EnOcean, offering “presence detection” and “people counting,” that had been installed in the school’s Interdisciplinary Science & Engineering Complex. The university provost eventually informed students that the department had planned to use the sensors with the Spaceti platform to optimize desk usage.

OccupEye (now owned by FM: Systems), another type of under-desk heat and motion sensor, received a similar reaction from staff at Barclays Bank and The Telegraph newspaper in London, with employees protesting and, in some cases, physically removing the devices that tracked the time they spent away from their desks.

Despite the fallout, Barclays later faced a $1.1 billion fine from the ICO when it was found to have deployed Sapience’s employee monitoring software in its offices, with the ability to single out and track individual employees. Perhaps unsurprisingly in the current climate, that same software company now offers “lightweight device-level technology” to monitor return-to-office policy compliance, with a dashboard breaking employee location down by office versus remote for specific departments and teams.

According to Elizabeth Anderson’s latest book Hijacked, while workplace surveillance culture and the obsession with measuring employee efficiency might feel relatively new, it can actually be traced back to the invention of the “work ethic” by the Puritans in the 16th and 17th centuries.

“They thought you should be working super hard; you shouldn’t be idling around when you should be in work,” she says. “You can see some elements there that can be developed into a pretty hostile stance toward workers. The Puritans were obsessed with not wasting time. It was about gaining assurance of salvation through your behavior. With the Industrial Revolution, the ‘no wasting time’ became a profit-maximizing strategy. Now you’re at work 24/7 because they can get you on email.”

Some key components of the original work ethic, though, have been skewed or lost over time. The Puritans also had strict constraints on what duties employers had toward their workers: paying a living wage and providing safe and healthy working conditions.

“You couldn’t just rule them tyrannically, or so they said. You had to treat them as your fellow Christians, with dignity and respect. In many ways the original work ethic was an ethic which uplifted workers.”

[underforeversgrace]

healing the wounds we hid - 9

title: healing the wounds we hid

Finally, the sequel to broken trust and the wounds hidden behind! (Refresh here on AO3 or here on Tumblr)

Story Summary: Now that his father knows, Danny's life is changing for the better. Jack encourages him to let his friends and the rest of the family into his small word. Unbeknownst to Danny, Jack is secretly worried about how Maddie will react to the news upon her return to Amity - and how to confront Vlad once Jack learns his true identity. Amidst it all, an enemy lurks and plots their revenge.

Chapter 9 of 11: Rescuing You

AO3

Tumblr Chapter One

(Tumblr Chapter Ten will be here)

~~~~~~

Maddie fidgeted uncomfortably in the passenger seat of the GAV as conversation and last minute preparations swirled around her.

“And you’re sure this will work? You threw it together in ten minutes from scrap.” Vlad asked, holding up a device the size of his palm.

“I’m positive. C’mon, an RFID jammer is one of the easiest things to build, what self respecting techno-geek wouldn’t know how to cobble one together?” Tucker retorted.

“I don’t think ‘self respecting’ and ‘techno-geek’ are ever able to go together,” Sam said. A strained laugh echoed around the GAV at the girl’s attempt to lighten the mood.

“Are there any other questions?” Jazz asked, trying to take charge and seem calm, but the way she repeatedly wrapped and unwrapped a strand of hair around her finger betrayed her anxiety. “Or are we all good on the plan?”

Soft murmurs of agreement went around the vehicle.

Maddie watched Jack as he drove, letting Vlad and the teenagers fall back into bickering behind her. He was dressed in a plain outfit, something she hadn’t seen from him in years. Jack wore brown slacks with a brown button up, a hat of the same color on his head. Even with his bulk, Jack looked like an ordinary everyday Joe, especially if she only glanced at him.

Her head itched under the wig she wore and she picked at the sleeve of the white coat she had on to keep from scratching at it. Why Sam had even had a blonde wig, especially of such high quality, Maddie had no idea. Maddie was similarly dressed plainly, a simple blouse and black slacks covered by a lab coat.

Jack turned the vehicle off the main road, stopping a half mile back from where they knew the facility to be.

“Vlad, Sam. You’re up. Mic check.” Jack said, hooking a Fenton Phone over his ear. Sam and Vlad followed suit. They only had four of these, so Tucker had the fourth one. The four of them flashed thumbs up to each other when they confirmed the Phones worked.

Sam scowled slightly down at her outfit - she’d dressed up in a costume as well, a black pencil skirt with a dusty pink top and light makeup, which, for a girl who Maddie had seen wearing combat boots since age eleven, was quite out of the ordinary. Vlad was the only one who would be interacting with the agents who didn’t have to change into some wildly unusual outfit.

“Be safe,” Jack said as Vlad and Sam clambered out of the vehicle. Both just shared solemn nods and began the trek to the facility.

“Hold on, I think I can patch the Phones into the GAV’s radio so you two can hear as well, Mrs. F, Jazz,” Tucker said, leaning forward and popping open the center console to expose the wires. After less than a minute of fiddling, static began to crackle through the speakers.

“Can you still hear me?” Tucker asked when he finished.

“Yes,” Sam answered as Vlad said “Affirmative.”

“Fuck yeah!” Tucker said with a grin, though he looked sheepish as he remembered who he was talking to. “Uh! I mean! You’re coming through the RV’s speakers, we can all hear you now.”

“Copy that,” Sam said. “We’re in sight of the facility.”

“Gotcha. Mr. F, wanna get us closer? Another quarter mile or so?” Tucker asked.

“Why?” Jazz asked.

“So that Vlad and Sam don’t have to walk as far back and so there isn’t as long of a gap between them leaving and Mr. and Mrs. F. arriving.” Tucker explained. “We don’t want to give them time to calm down.”

The four of them quieted down as the speakers flickered.

“Name and reason for visit?” A bored voice could be heard distantly.

“Vladimir Masters and my assistant, Eliza Jordans, here on behalf of Dalv Co. We have a meeting with some of your agents.” Vlad said smoothly.

“It’s six in the evening.” The agent answered, his boredom audible in his voice.

“Trust me, I am aware. I quite nearly canceled the visit when I was informed that your higher ups refused to meet with us at a more reasonable hour.”

“They were quite adamant this was the best time to meet with them,” Sam added, sounding timid and shy in a way that threw Maddie for a loop. That girl had been hard headed ever since the first time Maddie had met her, demure had certainly never been a word Maddie would describe Sam (or anyone in her family) with.

“No higher ups are here,” the guard grunted. “You’ll have to reschedule.”

“Oh, this is ridiculous!” Vlad said, doing a very good impersonation of a grown man having a tantrum.

“Mr. Masters, I think they don’t respect your time,” Sam added, sighing.

“Who is your manager? I wish to speak to him this instant!” Vlad said, the sound of a hand slamming against metal reverberating through the mic.

“He’s placed the jammer,” Tucker said.

“Sir, I apologize, but there is no one here higher than me at this time. You’ll need to call tomorrow and schedule an appointment.” The agent answered, clearly exasperated.

Maddie had to resist the urge to chuckle as she listened to her old friend absolutely rant and rave at this poor guard, but the stern, serious faces of the other three in the vehicle made her hold her tongue. They still believed Danny was being hurt, after all.

“That is enough!” The agent yelled after over a minute of Vlad screeching at him - a whole fifty seconds longer than Maddie herself would’ve lasted. “Call in the morning and get out of here before I call reinforcements! This is federal property and you are now trespassing!”

Sam sighed. “I’ll add it to my calendar tomorrow, Mr. Masters. But honestly, if they can’t make time to see the CEO of Dalv Co, are they worth your time? There’s other agencies that would grant you the respect you’re due if they want the multi-million dollar funding.”

“The - the what -“ the guard choked out.

“Right you are, Ms. Jordans. Be sure to mention this… lovely agent’s name when you call tomorrow to inform them why we will not be pursuing a partnership with them.”

“Certainly, Mr. Masters.”

They were listening to Sam get the guard’s name - and his stuttering - when Tucker distracted them with a yell. “No!”

“Tucker, what’s happened?” Jack asked, turning to look at him.

Tucker just blinked tears from his eyes, looking away from his PDA and jerking the singular headphone bud he wore out of his ear, leaving the Fenton Phones in his other. “Danny just woke up. He’d been unconscious until now. They’re…” Tucker took a deep breath. “Jazz, you said you were good to do first aid? He may have burns.”

Jazz and Jack both paled at the information. Tucker took a deep breath and returned his attention to the device in his hands. He flinched as he did so but didn’t elaborate further about what he saw as he pressed the headphone back into his ear, pain on his face. “You still have the blueprints I stole from city hall’s archives?”

Jack nodded, fishing the folded up paper from his pocket. “And we’ve got it noted which room you’re showing Danny is being held in.”

“Good. It sounds like Sam and Mr. Masters are done. You’re up.” Tucker said before looking up and making eye contact with Maddie. “Please bring him home.”

Maddie tried to give him a reassuring smile. Even if he didn’t realize this wasn’t really Danny, he clearly thought it was and it warmed her heart to see how much he wanted to help save her son. “I’ll get him,” she said.

“Here, your badges,” Jazz said, grabbing the fake cards from beside Tucker and handing them to Maddie and Jack.

Maddie nodded, tugging the badge into her pocket and straightening her wig, but Jack hesitated behind her.

“Tucker…” Jack started. He breathed shakily before continuing. “How hurt is Danny?”

“Hurt,” was all Tucker said. “Get him out of there. Please. I can’t… I can’t lose him again.” He pleaded.

“Don’t worry, Tucker,” Jack reassured. “I’m not going to lose him again, either.”

Maddie stayed quiet, merely nodding along as Jack finally hopped out of the GAV and they made their way towards the GIW facility.

“Thank you, Mads,” Jack said when they rounded a corner and were out of sight of Tucker and Jazz.

“For what?” Maddie asked.

“Believing our son. I know it’s hard, but… it’s him, Maddie. It really is.” He said, pulling the Fenton Phone out of his ear.

“How did he convince you so fast?” Maddie asked, keeping an eye out for Sam and Vlad.

Jack shrugged. “Same way as you, that video. Once you realize it’s him, it becomes so obvious in everything he does. I saw that video, I saw Danny’s goodbye… and I just knew it was him.”

“So what? He showed you that video and then everything just became fine?”

“Oh, no,” Jack shook his head. “I found the video by accident. I had gone into his room for something and found the USB and medical supplies hidden under his bed. He didn’t even know I’d seen the video. After that… well, you saw how afraid he was of us. I needed to earn his trust. It took a few weeks, but I did. He told me his secret of his own choice.”

“Why didn’t you tell me all of this, while I was away?” Maddie demanded. How long had her son been missing?

“Maddie, I love you and I always will. But it was… delicate. Tell me you wouldn’t have come home and accused me of being overshadowed and then shot him because you couldn’t believe he was Phantom without proof.”

She didn’t respond, they both knew he was right. She still knew Phantom wasn’t really Danny, after all. “Did he give you that? Proof?” She asked instead.

Even in the slight gloom, Maddie could see Jack’s lips turn up into a small smile. “I’ve seen his transformation a dozen times by now. He’s told me stories, explained things about what he’s hidden from us since this happened. The beakers he kept dropping in freshman year, you remember? Even that was because of being Phantom. He couldn’t control his powers yet.”

Maddie nearly stumbled as Jack kept talking.

Freshman year.

Pain spread in her heart. There was no way Danny was still alive after two years kidnapped by a ghost. Her son was dead and replaced.

And she hadn’t noticed.

Jack was still telling her things he’d learned since ‘discovering’ Danny was Phantom when Sam and Vlad finally came into view.

“Maddie. Jack.” Vlad said, pulling the Fenton Phone out of his ear and handing it towards her. “Is something wrong with your communication device? Mr. Foley and Jasmine have been trying to reach you.”

“Shit,” Jack swore, putting his Phone back in as Maddie followed suit, though her movements were slower and she felt more like she was in a haze.

Danny was dead.

He’d been dead for two years.

“You guys okay?” Tucker asked in her ear.

“We’re fine, sorry Tucker,” Jack apologized. “I was talking to Maddie.”

“Glad you’re fine,” Tucker said. “Remember, the jammer won’t work for long, hurry.”

Jack and Maddie did as they were told, Sam wishing them luck as she and Vlad made their way back to the GAV.

Icy determination fueled her steps as she pushed forward, patting gently at the weapon in her pocket. The jammer Vlad had planted for them would disrupt anything not powered by ecto-energy within fifteen feet, he’d said, so she’d decided to bring the gun just in case, and she was glad she had.

Phantom was not going to escape this night with his afterlife. Of that, Maddie was certain. 

Soon, she reassured herself as she tried to bury her feelings as deep as they would go. The plan was still the same - break into the facility and find Phantom. The only thing that had changed was her end goal - she’d have helped free him if it meant saving her son. But she had no son left to save.

The facility came into view - though ‘facility’ was a loose term for it. She’d seen the blueprints so she knew it wasn’t a very big place but she’d definitely been expecting more of a federal building, regardless. It was a squat, square white building with nothing of note to mark it, not even the name of the agency. Maddie looked to Jack and they shared a nod. They’d go in separately, Maddie was up first. Jack, dressed as a janitor, was there to help smuggle Phantom out, a Fenton Thermos tucked into one of his many pockets, and help Maddie fight her way out if it came to it.

“I’m right behind you,” Jack murmured, reaching for her hand and gently squeezing. “Let’s get our son.”

Maddie knew her smile looked strained, she could only hope Jack interpreted it as her being afraid about sneaking into the Ghost Investigation Ward’s base. With a deep breath, Maddie drew herself up to her full height, exuding confidence as she walked forward.

“Good evening!” She said pleasantly, fishing the fake badge out of her inner pocket.

“Evening,” the guard said, looking slightly shell shocked, probably thinking he’s about to lose his job once Dalv Co ‘calls’ tomorrow about the ‘funding meeting’ they were supposed to have.

Maddie just gave him a friendly grin, swiping her card over the access panel, which beeped angrily at her, a red light flashing. “Damn it,” she swore lowly, swiping it again and getting the same response. “Ugh, excuse me?” She asked.

The guard seemed to blink away some of his daze. “Uh, what’s up?”

“The door isn’t letting me in. Are the scanners acting up again? I thought they fixed that.”

“Damn it, again?” He asked, pulling out his own badge and getting the same response.

“Whoever is in charge of fixing this place really doesn’t want to do their job, do they?” Maddie asked, giving the man a sympathetic look.

“No,” he grumbled.

“Can you let me through? I was called in about the… specimen that was obtained today,” she said, glancing to the door in pretend worry. “I can’t miss it or my boss is going to blacklist me!”

The guard mumbled again, trying his badge uselessly. “I’ll put in yet another request about this. Go on in,” he said, buzzing open the door manually. “No one else needs to get fired,” he added so quietly she barely heard him.

“Oh, thank you!” Maddie said, overacting her relief as she hurried through the door, letting out a heavy breath as she did so. That had supposedly been the hard part according to their planning, getting into the building. “I’m in,” she said, pressing on the Phone in her ear.

“Copy that, Mrs. F.” Tucker said, though he sounded more staticky now. “These people really do say everything in their emails. Anyway, their shields are causing some interference but I can hear you loud enough. Mr. F, wait a minute and then follow her. We only have about four minutes left on that jammer.”

“Got it,” Jack answered. “Mads, start looking for Danny. Is he still in the same room, Tucker?”

“Yeah. Room B17, sub level number two. Please hurry, Mrs. Fenton.” Tucker said, his voice breaking slightly as he asked.

“On my way,” Maddie said, pressing at the earpiece again to silence her microphone. The halls were mostly empty - it was after 5pm on a weekday and this was a federal government agency, after all - so Maddie hurried towards the stairs, her hand going back to the blaster hidden beneath her robe, on her hip.

She had to get to Phantom before Jack got inside. He’d never let her do what needs to be done, never accept Phantom had only pretended to be their son, accept Danny was dead and they had been too negligent to notice. She only had a little bit of time to blast that ectoplasmic scum to whatever Hell he had avoided the first time he’d died.

She had no trouble getting down to level two - security really was astonishingly lax here. Tucker had said as much - the emails he’d gotten access to indicated the GIW’s focus was on stopping ghosts, not humans.

“I’m heading in,” she heard Jack say and she swore. He needed to stay out! Maddie desperately scanned around her for an idea, grinning when she saw the sprinklers in the ceiling. Perfect. A fire alarm would keep Jack out and may help clear out whatever scientists were with Phantom. She pulled the prototype Fryer from her waist, aiming it at one of the sprinklers above her. 

“Mrs. F, what are you doing?” Tucker yelled in her ear. 

“My son is dead,” she answered calmly, pulling the Phones from her ear as she heard Jack begin to scream her name, dropping the device to the floor and crushing it beneath her heel. She lowered the voltage of her weapon and fired, the sprinklers going off instantly as the fire alarm began to echo loudly throughout the halls. She heard scattered shouts of shock as she bolted out into a full run, relying on her memory of the blueprints to lead her to B17. She found the room just as someone jerked the door open and ran out, forcing her to jump to the side to keep from being trampled.

“Get back here!” A voice screeched from the room. The scientists paid the man who spoke no mind, more focused on evacuating.

None of the scientists paid her any mind either as she slipped into the room, Fryer held loosely in one hand.

“Cowards!” The man yelled, furious. It took Maddie a moment to recognize him - Operative O. He appeared more disheveled than she remembered him ever being, also wearing some type of metal prosthetic where his hand had been last time she’d seen him.

Maddie quickly studied the room - it was clearly some sort of surgical theater, full of medical equipment and sterile metal surfaces. Phantom was shackled to a stainless steel table in the center of the room, electrodes connected to various spots on his upper body. She didn’t care to study him too much, noticing the way O was standing beside him, hands on the table as he yelled.

“Get away from Phantom,” she ordered, holding up the gun and aiming it at O.

Phantom snapped his head to the side to stare at her. A gag was settled in his mouth, preventing him from talking. Tear streaks ran down his face, tinged with the same glow as ectoplasm. She’d have to be blind to not notice the Lichtenberg scars running across his arms and torso, sickly green that shot over him like lightning, so dark and concentrated over where a human heart would be that it looked like burnt flesh. Small branches of the same design poked out from around the sticky pads connecting the electrodes to him.

His eyes were wide as he stared at her, though she couldn’t bring herself to truly study his face.

What if? Her mind whispered and she stomped the sentiment away.

“Who’re you?” O demanded.

“Doesn’t matter. Phantom is mine. Back off, I don’t want to hurt you,” she said, making a shooing motion with her hands.

“He is mine,” the man hissed, going for the gun on his waist and aiming it at her, one handed.

“He killed my son,” Maddie shot back. “Back off!”

She heard Phantom make a slightly strangled gasp through the gag, but she refused to look at his face again.

“He killed my brother!” O shot back. “He needs to pay!”

“He does,” she agreed. “But he’s tricked humans. They’re coming to save him. He dies now or he escapes!”

That made O stop, even lowering his gun. “Phantom can’t escape again. He can’t.” O’s face crumpled slightly in grief. “He has to pay for what he did to K!”

"He does," Maddie agreed, stepping closer to the table. "But if we don't get rid of him now, he's going to escape."

Maddie ignored the sounds Phantom was making as he struggled on the table, screams muffled by his gag. She accidentally looked at him - she saw the pain and hurt and betrayal in his eyes as tears dripped down his face.

What if? Her mind muttered to her again. No! She insisted, forcing herself to look back at O. She held up the weapon so he could see it. "I think this can destabilize him. It has a high enough electrical current, based on my theories, to unravel a core. We never used it because we wanted a specimen we could study. I’m willing to make an exception,” she said, gesturing towards Phantom with the gun.

Phantom began to actively pull and strain at the metal cuffs binding him to the table. O practically growled, angrily flipping a switch on the machine near him. Maddie jerked away as electricity crackled and sparked along the ghost’s frame.

His entire body seemed to dance with electricity, his back arched so far he’d have broken his spine if he were human and had one. His eyes rolled back into his head, spit dripping from the gag as he screamed so loudly it may as well not even be there. It didn’t last for long, O turning the switch back to its ‘off’ position. Phantom collapsed back down with a thud, fresh tears falling from his eyes as he sobbed, eyes clenched tightly closed.

Good, she determined. He can feel pain.

She did her best to not notice the rise and fall of his chest as he desperately tried to draw in air.

“How high is the voltage on that?” O asked, turning away from the crying ghost. Maddie answered and he frowned. “We’ve shocked him with something higher than that already and he showed no signs of destabilization.”

Maddie frowned slightly, glancing at the watch on her wrist. The fire alarm had delayed Jack, but it wouldn’t keep him away forever. She nor Jack had ever actually destabilized a ghost, all they had was theory.

“We’re running out of time. I’ve got an idea. We may be able to disrupt the core by running two separate currents, so the core can’t find an equilibrium. Meaning - you turn yours on, and I’ll turn mine on,” she explained, dialing the voltage on the prototype as high as it would go.

Operative O’s grin could only be described as sadistic. “You hear that, Phantom?” He asked, clapping his metal hand roughly against Phantom’s shoulder. “Time to ride the lightning! Something you already have experience with, hm?” He added, gesturing to the distinct scarring on the ghost’s chest.

“Goodbye, Phantom,” Maddie murmured. The ghost turned to look at her, wide eyed and afraid as she pressed the gun to his forehead. She didn’t mean to, she really didn’t, but she ended up holding his gaze.

There was no anger, no malice in his eyes. No desire for revenge, no defiant sass.

No, all that she saw was terror - pure, unbridled terror - mixed with agony. Tears tinted green fell freely and a scream that was clearly a plea for help, for mercy, was audible through the gag.

What if I’m wrong? pierced her mind and her grip on the gun loosened slightly, enough that Phantom noticed. Hope filtered into his green gaze, though it didn’t stay there long, as O flicked the machine back on, turning the voltage to max. Again, Phantom’s body seemed to involuntary raise, trying to pull away from the table as he screamed so loudly she wondered if she’d go deaf.

What if I’m wrong? echoed in her head as a memory came to her unbidden. A family vacation down south, to the coast, the first time Danny had ever seen the Atlantic Ocean. He’d been eleven - was it really only five years ago? It felt like a lifetime - and he’d gone too far, getting caught in a riptide. Jack had gotten to him easily, but she’d never forget the look on Danny’s face when Jack had pulled him up out of the water and he’d choked, drawing in breath.

Why was that memory coming up now?

Maddie took a deep breath, steadying her hand, which had begun to shake at some point as the ghost child’s screams continued to fill the air. She could hear O’s laughter as Phantom cried out in wordless agony.

What if you’re wrong, Maddie? kept being screamed inside her mind.

This isn’t my son! she argued with herself, pressing the barrel of the weapon close to Phantom's head.

Before she could fire, a loud crack! sounded around the room and Phantom screamed even louder, his body arching even further in the air. The odd shape he contorted into made her heart skip a beat. That was his spine breaking.

He had a spine to break.

Are you willing to kill your son? was a quiet, tired sentiment in her head, the memory of Danny’s terrified eyes the day at the beach and Phantom’s similar look shoved themselves to her.

Not just similar. The same. It’s the same.

That’s my son!

Maddie made her decision instantaneously once she could no longer deny the proof in front of her. She raised her gun and fired at Operative O - knowing she was shooting hundreds of volts of electricity into a human, more than anyone could survive.

Killing a human to save a ghost.

Killing a human to save her son.

He dropped immediately and Maddie released her grip on the gun, letting it clatter to the floor as she ran to the device, quickly turning it off. His body fell heavily onto the table, unmoving and with closed eyes, even his chest still.

“Danny? Danny!” Maddie screamed, pulling the gag out of his mouth and jerking the sticky pads off his skin, ignoring the nausea that sprung up in her stomach as blackened, charred flesh was exposed with each electrode she removed. “Danny, please!”

A single bleary eye opened, unfocused. “Mom?” He asked, his voice hoarse from screaming.

“I’m right here, Danny, I’m right here,” she reassured, fumbling with the button marked to release the cuffs holding him down. They retracted and disappeared.

“You didn’t kill me?”

“No, no, of course not,” she said, running a hand through his hair, biting her tongue to keep from hissing in pain as he was so cold it burned.

“Dad won’t let you dissect me,” he said softly. “He won’t.”

“Oh, God, sweetie, I’m so sorry, I’m not going to hurt you! I swear! But we need to get out of here! Can you sit up?”

He made a grunting sound but nothing happened. “I can’t,” he said, a panicked edge in his voice. “I… do I have legs right now? I can’t… Mom, I can’t feel my legs!” He said, his panic growing the longer he talked, though his speech was slurred.

“Your back,” Maddie realized and guilt burrowed into her soul. “I think you broke your back!” She was struggling not to panic, not to throw up. Had she just paralyzed her son?

“Fuck,” Danny swore, his voice hitching in pain. “It’ll heal. We need… We need…” He trailed off, gaze again unfocused. Maddie had a strong suspicion he was going to lose consciousness any second now.

Determining she had no other option, Maddie leaned over the table, tucking her arms under Danny, lifting him and holding him close to her.

He was so light.

He was so scarred.

God, what had she done?

[aidc-india]

Top 10 RFID Definitions in 2025: Revolutionizing Industry

AIDC India’s 2025 Guide: RFID Definitions That Power Industry Efficiency

The future of business operations is driven by speed, accuracy, and automation. In 2025, RFID Definitions are more relevant than ever as industries look for smarter ways to track inventory, manage assets, and ensure security. RFID, or Radio Frequency Identification, uses wireless communication to identify and monitor tagged items.

At AIDC Technologies India, we specialize in providing advanced RFID solutions that help businesses improve their efficiency. This blog explores the top 10 RFID Definitions reshaping industries across India and how AIDC is leading the transformation.

1. RFID Definitions for Inventory Accuracy in Retail by AIDC

One of the most practical uses of RFID Definitions is in the retail industry. Retailers are constantly seeking better ways to manage inventory, reduce shrinkage, and improve the shopping experience.

AIDC provides RFID systems that let store owners scan hundreds of products in seconds without line-of-sight scanning. It means faster stock checks, better shelf management, and fewer lost items. This improves accuracy while reducing manual labor.

2. AIDC’s RFID Definitions in Warehouse & Logistics Automation

Warehousing and logistics rely on timing and accuracy. Traditional barcoding requires line-of-sight and manual scanning, which slows down processes. RFID Definitions offer real-time visibility of assets as they move through different stages.

AIDC India helps logistics firms deploy RFID tags that are read automatically as shipments enter, exit, or move inside a facility. This reduces human error, speeds up sorting, and ensures transparency across the entire supply chain.

3. RFID Definitions for Smart Manufacturing Efficiency

Manufacturing plants use RFID Definitions to monitor materials, machines, and workflows. AIDC integrates RFID into production lines, enabling real-time tracking of parts and products as they pass through each stage.

Whether it’s automotive, electronics, or food processing, RFID ensures that the right components are used at the right time. It helps reduce waste, improve quality control, and boost overall productivity.

4. RFID-Based Healthcare Tracking with AIDC Technologies

Healthcare is another sector where RFID Definitions bring massive improvements. Hospitals and clinics use RFID to track medical equipment, monitor patients, and manage pharmaceutical inventory.

With AIDC's RFID systems, medical staff can quickly locate critical devices, ensure medication accuracy, and improve patient safety. RFID wristbands for patients help in preventing mix-ups and ensuring accurate treatment.

5. RFID Definitions in Secure Access & Workforce Management

Security and workforce management are made easier with RFID Definitions. RFID badges allow companies to control access to offices, labs, or secure areas while keeping digital records of entry and exit times.

AIDC Technologies provides RFID access systems that are fast, contactless, and fully traceable. It helps reduce unauthorized access, monitor employee attendance, and improve workplace safety.

6. AIDC RFID in Public Transportation & E-Ticketing

From metro systems to buses, RFID Definitions are now a core part of public transportation. Smart cards embedded with RFID chips allow passengers to board quickly and pay electronically.

AIDC has helped many transit authorities implement RFID-based ticketing systems that reduce waiting time and eliminate fraud. These systems are scalable, reliable, and offer real-time data for authorities to manage routes and passenger flow efficiently.

7. RFID Definitions for Livestock & Agricultural Monitoring

Farming and livestock management are also benefiting from RFID Definitions. Farmers can use RFID ear tags and chips to identify, track, and manage livestock health records, movement, and feeding schedules.

AIDC India supplies robust RFID tags for agriculture that are weather-resistant and long-lasting. These solutions help improve farm productivity, reduce losses, and ensure compliance with animal health regulations.

8. Event Management Made Easy with RFID-Based Access by AIDC

Managing large crowds at events can be challenging. RFID Definitions simplify entry control, ticket validation, and real-time attendee tracking. With RFID wristbands, event organizers can allow fast, secure, and contactless access.

AIDC’s RFID event management tools are perfect for expos, concerts, and corporate gatherings. They also offer insights into visitor flow, helping organizers improve the event experience while keeping things secure.

9. RFID Definitions for Textile & Laundry Management Systems

Industries like hospitality, healthcare, and uniforms rely heavily on laundry and textile services. RFID Definitions enable automated tracking of linens, garments, and uniforms throughout the wash and delivery cycle.

AIDC provides washable RFID tags that help businesses monitor usage, prevent loss, and ensure timely returns. It’s an ideal solution for hotels, hospitals, and industrial laundries seeking better garment control.

10. Why AIDC Leads in RFID Definitions for Industrial Innovation

As RFID becomes the standard for tracking and identification, choosing the right solution provider matters. AIDC Technologies India stands out with its years of experience, reliable products, and customized services.

Our team understands the unique needs of each industry and provides complete RFID solutions—from tags and readers to software integration and support. We help businesses implement RFID Definitions that deliver real value and long-term efficiency.

Whether you're in retail, healthcare, manufacturing, or logistics, AIDC’s RFID technology is built to make your operations smarter and more agile.

Book now AIDC Technologies for RFID-Based Efficiency Solutions Today

Want to automate your workflow and increase productivity in 2025?

Conclusion: RFID Definitions Are Driving Industry Growth in 2025

In today’s digital-first world, businesses can’t afford delays, errors, or inefficiencies. RFID Definitions are the building blocks of a smarter, faster, and more connected future. They make it possible to track, manage, and optimize every aspect of operations—from inventory to people.

[nephsystem]

Active RFID Reader For Long Range People Tracking

Active RFID Reader is an effective era used for monitoring and identifying belongings, people, or cars over lengthy distances. At the coronary coronary coronary coronary heart of any active RFID tool is the RFID reader, a device that detects and communicates with lively RFID tags, which can be powered with the useful resource of an internal battery. This setup allows dependable, extended-variety, real-time location monitoring and information trade in dynamic environments.

What Is an Active RFID Reader?

An energetic RFID reader is a specialized device designed to accumulate signals transmitted with the useful resource of active RFID tags. Unlike passive RFID readers, which supply out electricity to "awaken" passive tags, energetic RFID readers pay interest for indicators broadcasted by way of the use of battery-powered tags. These tags can transmit indicators periodically, at set durations, or in reaction to particular activities like motion or temperature adjustments.

Because the tags are powered, lively RFID structures can be characterized over significantly longer stages—normally 30 to a hundred meters, or at the same time as a good buy as three hundred meters in outstanding conditions. Active RFID Reader & RFID People Tracking may additionally embody antennas, wi-fi network interfaces, and connection ports to transmit information to number one systems for processing and show.

Applications of Active RFID Readers

Active RFID Reader Supplier in Canada are widely applied in environments wherein actual-time monitoring over huge regions is wanted:

Supply Chain and Logistics: For tracking pallets, packing containers, and vehicles in large warehouses or shipping yards.

Healthcare: Monitoring the real-time vicinity of important devices, frames of personnel, and patients' internal hospitals.

Manufacturing: Tracking equipment, system, and artwork-in-development gadgets in the course of manufacturing flooring.

Security and Access Control: Monitoring employees motion in excessive-protection regions like labs, military bases, or statistics centers.

Mining and Oil Industries: Locating employees in far off or unstable regions to decorate safety and reaction instances.

Benefits of Active RFID Readers

Longer Range: Can stumble upon tags from tens to hundreds of meters away.

Real-Time Tracking: Provides non-stop updates on the vicinity and status of property.

High Data Capacity: Active tags can supply greater information and beneficial resource sensors for temperature, humidity, and masses of others.

Durability: Suitable for rugged environments collectively with introduction of net web web sites or industrial organization company plant life.

Automation: Reduces the need for manual monitoring, enhancing common standard overall performance and accuracy.

Challenges and Considerations

While powerful, Active RFID Reader do encompass some drawbacks:

Higher Cost: Both the readers and energetic tags are greater steeply-priced than passive structures.

Battery Maintenance: Active tags require battery opportunity or charging, which include operational obligations.

Complex Installation: Requires cautious planning for reader placement to make certain complete insurance.

Conclusion

Active RFID Reader in Canada are critical machines for massive-scale, real-time monitoring systems. Their capability to expose assets and people over prolonged distances makes them best for excessive-fee, protection-essential packages. While greater steeply-priced than passive systems, the overall overall performance and flexibility they offer can deliver massive returns in productivity, visibility, and control.

[tuffwrap]

The Future of Construction Dust and Debris Containment Systems: Smarter, Safer, Greener

In the ever-evolving construction industry, safety, cleanliness, and sustainability are no longer optional—they are essential. At the heart of modern jobsite cleanliness is the construction dust and debris containment system, which is rapidly transforming thanks to new technologies and rising environmental standards.

As we step into the future, these systems are becoming smarter, safer, and greener, aligning with growing regulatory demands and customer expectations. Here's a look at how these systems are shaping the next generation of construction practices.

🧠 Smarter: Technology-Driven Containment Solutions

Gone are the days of relying solely on plastic sheets and duct tape. Today’s construction dust and debris containment systems are enhanced with smart technologies designed to improve performance and reduce manual oversight.

Innovations include:

IoT-connected air quality sensors that monitor particulate levels in real time.

HEPA-filtered negative air machines that automatically adjust airflow based on dust concentration.

Digital alerts sent to site managers when containment breaches or system failures occur.

Modular systems with RFID tracking, ensuring fast setup and optimised inventory use.

These smart systems allow for better control of contamination, especially in sensitive environments like hospitals, data centers, and pharmaceutical facilities.

🦺 Safer: Protecting Workers and Occupants

A well-designed construction dust and debris containment system does more than just block dust—it actively contributes to jobsite safety.

Key safety benefits include:

Improved indoor air quality, reducing the risk of respiratory illnesses among workers and building occupants.

Compliance with OSHA and EPA regulations, helping avoid costly fines.

Controlled containment zones, which reduce trip hazards and cross-contamination.

As health and safety standards become more stringent in 2025 and beyond, these systems will be essential in maintaining a compliant and secure workspace.

🌱 Greener: Eco-Conscious Materials and Sustainable Practices

Sustainability is a growing concern across all sectors, and construction is no exception. The future of dust and debris containment includes a strong shift toward eco-friendly materials and reusable systems.

Green advancements include:

Reusable modular wall systems made from recyclable composites or low-VOC materials.

Biodegradable containment wraps designed for short-term use without long-term waste.

Energy-efficient negative air machines that reduce carbon footprint while maintaining performance.

Zero-waste planning that integrates dust containment into broader sustainability strategies.

These improvements not only help projects qualify for certifications like LEED but also reflect a commitment to environmental responsibility.

🏗 Use Cases Leading the Charge

The most forward-thinking industries are already implementing next-gen dust containment systems:

🏥 Healthcare Facilities: Infection control during renovations.

🏢 Corporate Offices: Minimal disruption to daily operations.

�� Labs and Cleanrooms: Zero tolerance for air contaminants.

🏫 Schools and Universities: Safer environments for students during campus upgrades.

In each case, an advanced construction dust and debris containment system proves to be a cost-effective and risk-reducing investment.

🛠 Final Thoughts: Prepare for a Cleaner Tomorrow

As construction practices continue to evolve, adopting a smarter, safer, greener construction dust and debris containment system isn’t just a trend—it’s a necessity. By integrating advanced technology, prioritising safety, and committing to sustainability, contractors can future-proof their sites while meeting the expectations of clients, regulators, and the planet.

Whether you're managing a high-sensitivity renovation or a standard tenant improvement, the containment solution you choose today will define your success tomorrow.

[ebirdexpresspartyideas]

Enhance workplace security with a Badge Reader: Here is why

In an era in which the threats from both data breaches and physical security are climbing, businesses have to do something about it and protect themselves, their employees, and their proprietary information. Badge readers are one of the best, most popular answers for companies.

A badge reader scans people's badges to verify credentials and will only give access to those authorized to enter. The use of badge readers provides benefits beyond improving security; it also provides an easier way to track attendance and can improve efficiency in the workplace. Companies looking for reliable and sophisticated solutions can find a substantial selection at RF IDeas’ official store. There are many different models of badge readers for a variety of different environments.

Access control systems

Access control is an important part of modern workplace security. Along with badges, electronic access control systems are emerging methods of security at access points compared to stereotype lock and key. Badge readers will be a fundamental part of this changing landscape as they provide an efficient and reliable security solution.

Identifying employees with badges that are embedded with RFID or smart technologies provide certainty that only people with the correct access is entering these spaces. This not only prevents unauthorized entry but creates a record of who entered and exited, which is needed for audits and emergency response development.

Improving efficiency in everyday operations

Badge readers improve day to day operations in a number of ways, in addition to offering boosted security. When organizations install badge readers to track attendance, they relieve their HR departments of administrative burdens, and free them of penalties for missed time sheets or lost human error. Some badge readers' attendance capability, and system abilities even allow integration with clock systems or payroll systems greatly simplifying payroll, and securing accuracy of the information used by your payroll system.

Multiple uses in a variety of workplaces

While badge readers commonly signify a particular type of workplace, they can be used across a variety of industries. In a healthcare environment for example, badge readers can limit access to patient records, and controlled substances. In educational settings, they can control access to labs, dormitories, and classrooms. In a corporation, badging replaces the pen or hidden logbook that tries to limit access to confidential information in such a way to protect a corporate asset. Badge readers can be customized through warranties, or the use of base plate sizes with different capabilities, offering organizations flexibility with hardware and software custom options.

Linking to modern security standards

Today’s badge readers are built to address current security challenges. Many badge readers are friendly, support several types of credentials, such as proximity cards, smart cards or mobile credentials via NFC or Bluetooth, allowing organizations to implement future-ready strategies without having to deploy individual access control technologies every time security and compliance requirements evolve. Modern badge readers' ability to integrate allows organizations to enhance security posture without replacing existing security and IT capabilities, making them a long-term, financial investment.

With security and operational challenges continuing to grow, the implementation of viable access control systems in organizations is a must. While a badge reader's primary purpose is to enhance our physical security, it compensates for the disruption of having to respond to an event that affects our workforce's ability to operate effectively in the workplace. If you are looking to adopt or upgrade your access control solution, you can find innovative and reliable badge reader technology at  https://www.rfideas-shop.com/readers/.

[pankajbanerjee-official]

Because nothing says ‘trust in the workplace’ like being scanned, frisked, and X-rayed before you can check your emails.

🔐 WHY Are Airport-like Security Checks Required in Offices?

1. Protection of Sensitive Information

In industries like defense, tech R&D, finance, pharma, or government contracts, data breaches could cost millions or risk national security.

To prevent leaks via USBs, hidden devices, or even photographs of confidential data.

2. IP Theft Prevention

Especially relevant in startups, design firms, and research labs where intellectual property (IP) is a key asset.

Ensures prototypes, formulas, or designs are not smuggled out.

3. Asset Safety

Offices handling high-value items (like jewelry, electronics, or currency) use such checks to avoid internal theft.

4. Employee and Workplace Safety

In regions or industries with high threat levels (terrorism, political unrest, etc.), strict security keeps employees and infrastructure safe.

5. Compliance & Regulatory Requirements

Certain industries (like aviation, defense contractors, or nuclear energy) mandate such checks to comply with national or international regulations.

⏰ WHEN Are Such Checks Implemented?

1. During High-Security Periods

Following a security threat or breach.

During the launch of highly confidential products or initiatives.

2. In High-Risk Locations

Offices located in politically unstable or high-crime areas.

3. Visitor-Heavy Events

During conferences, VIP visits, or shareholder meetings where crowd control and access management is essential.

4. Shift Changes or Night Operations

To monitor what’s being carried in or out during off-hours.

5. Inside Critical Zones

Specific rooms or labs (e.g., data centers, server rooms, R&D labs) may require screening for entry/exit.

✅ Common Methods Used:

Walk-through metal detectors

Bag scanners/X-rays

Biometric authentication

RFID badge scanning

Random frisking or bag checks

[businessindustry]

Lab Sample Management & Logistics Market Growth, Forecast Report by 2025-2033

The Reports and Insights, a leading market research company, has recently releases report titled “Lab Sample Management & Logistics Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2025-2033.” The study provides a detailed analysis of the industry, including the global Lab Sample Management & Logistics Market share, size, trends, and growth forecasts. The report also includes competitor and regional analysis and highlights the latest advancements in the market.

Report Highlights:

How big is the Lab Sample Management & Logistics Market?

The global lab sample management & logistics market was valued at US$ 3.5 billion in 2024 and is expected to register a CAGR of 5.5% over the forecast period and reach US$ 5.7 billion in 2033.

What are Lab Sample Management & Logistics?                                                                                                                                             

Lab sample management and logistics refer to the organized handling, tracking, and storage of samples in laboratories to maintain their integrity and streamline their movement during testing. This encompasses sample collection, transportation, labeling, storage, and distribution for analysis. Proper management is essential for preserving sample quality, minimizing errors, and meeting regulatory requirements. Technologies like laboratory information management systems (LIMS) are commonly used to automate and improve these processes, enhancing overall efficiency and traceability in lab operations.

Request for a sample copy with detail analysis: https://www.reportsandinsights.com/sample-request/1821

What are the growth prospects and trends in the Lab Sample Management & Logistics industry?

The lab sample management and logistics market growth are driven by various factors. The lab sample management and logistics market are growing significantly, fueled by the demand for effective sample handling solutions across industries like healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and research. Factors such as the increasing number of clinical trials, the necessity for accurate sample tracking to meet regulations, and the adoption of automation are propelling market growth. Moreover, the incorporation of advanced technologies such as RFID, IoT, and cloud-based solutions is boosting the efficiency and precision of sample management and logistics. As the emphasis on sample integrity and data traceability increases, the market for lab sample management and logistics is poised for continued expansion. Hence, all these factors contribute to lab sample management and logistics market growth.

What is included in market segmentation?

The report has segmented the market into the following categories:

By Product Type:

Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS)

Sample Tracking Systems

Electronic Laboratory Notebooks (ELN)

Scientific Data Management Systems (SDMS)

Laboratory Automation Systems

By Component:

Software

Services

By Delivery Mode:

On-premise

Cloud-based

By End-Use:

Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Companies

Contract Research Organizations (CROs)

Academic and Research Institutes

Hospitals and Diagnostic Laboratories

Others

Market Segmentation by Region:

North America

United States

Canada

Europe

Germany

The U.K.

France

Spain

Italy

Russia

Poland

BENELUX

NORDIC

Rest of Europe

Asia Pacific

China

India

Japan

Australia & New Zealand

ASEAN

Rest of Asia Pacific

Latin America

Brazil

Mexico

Argentina

Rest of Latin America

Middle East & Africa

Saudi Arabia

United Arab Emirates

South Africa

Egypt

Israel

Rest of MEA

Who are the key players operating in the industry?

The report covers the major market players including:

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.

LabVantage Solutions, Inc.

PerkinElmer, Inc.

LabWare, Inc.

Abbott Laboratories

Waters Corporation

Brooks Life Sciences

Hamilton Company

Becton, Dickinson and Company

Agilent Technologies, Inc.

Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc.

QIAGEN N.V.

Siemens Healthineers

RURO, Inc.

LIMSABC Co.

View Full Report: https://www.reportsandinsights.com/report/Lab Sample Management & Logistics-market

If you require any specific information that is not covered currently within the scope of the report, we will provide the same as a part of the customization.

About Us:

Reports and Insights consistently mееt international benchmarks in the market research industry and maintain a kееn focus on providing only the highest quality of reports and analysis outlooks across markets, industries, domains, sectors, and verticals. We have bееn catering to varying market nееds and do not compromise on quality and research efforts in our objective to deliver only the very best to our clients globally.

Our offerings include comprehensive market intelligence in the form of research reports, production cost reports, feasibility studies, and consulting services. Our team, which includes experienced researchers and analysts from various industries, is dedicated to providing high-quality data and insights to our clientele, ranging from small and medium businesses to Fortune 1000 corporations.

Contact Us:

Reports and Insights Business Research Pvt. Ltd. 1820 Avenue M, Brooklyn, NY, 11230, United States Contact No: +1-(347)-748-1518 Email: sales@reportsandinsights.com Website: https://www.reportsandinsights.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/report-and-insights/ Follow us on twitter: https://twitter.com/ReportsandInsi1

[labvmi]

Streamlining Lab Operations with Smart Inventory Solutions

In today’s fast-paced research and clinical environments, efficient inventory management is critical. Laboratories are under constant pressure to reduce costs, eliminate waste, and maintain a consistent supply of materials. One solution gaining traction is Laboratory Vendor Managed Inventory, a service model that ensures your lab is always stocked without the burden of manual inventory tracking.

What Is Laboratory Vendor Managed Inventory?

Laboratory Vendor Managed Inventory (Lab VMI) is a supply chain solution where vendors monitor and manage a laboratory’s inventory levels. Through automated data tracking and usage forecasting, suppliers ensure timely restocking of consumables, reagents, and other essential items. This reduces the risk of stockouts, improves operational efficiency, and frees up valuable time for lab personnel.

Benefits of Lab VMI

Implementing a Lab VMI system offers a wide range of benefits, including:

Improved efficiency: Automated tracking reduces manual labor and human error.

Cost savings: Minimized overstocking and waste from expired products.

Streamlined procurement: Fewer purchase orders and administrative tasks.

Data-driven decisions: Real-time data enables more accurate planning and budgeting.

This model is particularly valuable for high-throughput labs where uninterrupted workflows are essential.

The Future of Laboratory Supply Management

As laboratories seek ways to enhance productivity, Laboratory Supply Management is evolving with technology. Digital platforms and cloud-based systems now allow labs and suppliers to collaborate seamlessly, track consumption trends, and respond to changes in demand more effectively than ever before.

With the integration of barcode scanning, RFID, and IoT-enabled tracking, supply management becomes more accurate, efficient, and adaptable to your lab’s specific needs.

Partnering with the Right Provider

Selecting a reliable VMI partner is crucial. A professional team will assess your unique inventory needs, implement customized systems, and provide ongoing support to ensure your lab stays fully equipped. If you're ready to take control of your inventory without the administrative headache, explore the services offered by LabVMI, a leader in Laboratory Vendor Managed Inventory.

[conductivefabric5]

Comprehensive Guide to Shielding & Blocking Fabrics: EMF, Anti-Radiation, RFID & RF

In an increasingly connected world, the need to protect ourselves, our devices, and our sensitive data from electromagnetic interference and unauthorized scans has never been more critical. Shielding and blocking fabrics—engineered with conductive fibers capable of attenuating or reflecting electromagnetic waves—offer versatile solutions across consumer, industrial, and medical applications. This article explores four key categories of these performance textiles: EMF shielding fabric, anti-radiation fabric, RFID blocking fabric, and RF shielding fabric.

1. EMF Shielding Fabric

Electromagnetic Field (EMF) shielding fabric is specifically designed to protect against the broad spectrum of electromagnetic radiation emitted by power lines, mobile devices, routers, and other electronics.

Materials & Construction

Conductive fibers such as silver-plated nylon, copper-infused polyester, or stainless-steel blends

Knitted or woven structures to maintain flexibility, breathability, and drapeability

Key Benefits

Reduces exposure to low-frequency (ELF) and high-frequency (RF) EMF

Maintains fabric softness and durability for apparel and home textiles

Washable for long-term use

Typical Applications

Protective clothing and undergarments for EMF-sensitive individuals

Curtains, window screens, and tent linings to create “quiet zones” in homes and offices

Enclosures for electronic equipment, medical devices, and laboratory spaces

2. Anti-Radiation Fabric

Anti-radiation fabric overlaps with EMF shielding textiles but is often marketed toward general “radiation protection,” including both electromagnetic and ionizing radiation shielding.

Material Variations

Silver or copper coated textiles for non-ionizing EMF

Metal-foil laminates (e.g., aluminum or stainless steel foils sandwiched in fabric layers) for enhanced barrier performance

Core Advantages

Broader spectrum attenuation, potentially including X-rays and gamma rays when laminated with dense metal foils

High tensile strength and tear resistance for industrial or medical shielding curtains

Customizable in multilayer composites for capsule or enclosure applications

Use Cases

Protective aprons and lab coats for radiology departments

Wall and ceiling panels in radiotherapy rooms

Consumer garments and bedding marketed to EMP enthusiasts

3. RFID Blocking Fabric

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) blocking fabric specifically targets the prevention of unauthorized reading of RFID chips embedded in passports, credit cards, ID badges, and access cards.

Shielding Mechanism

Conductive fibers create a Faraday cage effect around RFID antennas

Blocks common RFID frequencies (125 kHz, 13.56 MHz, and UHF 860–960 MHz)

Standout Features

Lightweight and ultra-thin, enabling integration into wallets, passport covers, and bags

Durable through repeated flexing and laundering

Available in rolls, sheets, and customizable cut-to-size pieces

Practical Applications

Travel accessories: wallets, passport holders, ticket sleeves

Fashion and accessories: jackets, purses, hats with embedded blocking lining

Industrial ID management: badge holders for secure facilities

4. RF Shielding Fabric

Radio Frequency (RF) shielding fabric is engineered to attenuate or reflect radio waves across a specified frequency range, from VHF/UHF television bands up to microwave and millimeter-wave frequencies.

Common Fabric Types

Stainless steel® woven mesh fabrics for broad-band RF shielding

Copper-nylon blends for targeted attenuation at specific frequencies (e.g., Wi-Fi at 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz)

Advantages & Performance Metrics

High shielding effectiveness (SE) ratings, often exceeding 60 dB—meaning over 99.9999% signal reduction

Flexibility and conformability for complex shapes and enclosures

Often supplied with grounding options to safely dissipate intercepted energy

Typical Uses

EMI/RFI gaskets and seals in aerospace, telecommunications, and defense equipment

Shielded rooms and enclosures for EMC testing labs

Protective covers and drapes for antennas and radar installations

Choosing the Right Fabric for Your Needs

When selecting between EMF, anti-radiation, RFID blocking, and RF shielding fabrics, consider the following factors:

Frequency Range & Shielding Effectiveness (SE):

Match the fabric’s tested SE to the frequencies you need to block.

Form Factor & Flexibility:

Apparel and soft furnishings require knitted or woven textiles, while rigid foil laminates suit panel applications.

Durability & Maintenance:

Ensure the fabric withstands laundering, UV exposure, or chemical cleaning if used in demanding environments.

Customization & Integration:

Look for suppliers offering roll goods, die-cut shapes, or laminated composites tuned to your project specifications.

Conclusion

Conductive-fiber fabrics offer versatile solutions to modern challenges of electromagnetic exposure, data privacy, and signal interference. Whether you’re designing protective garments, travel accessories, secure enclosures, or industrial shielding, the right choice among EMF shielding, anti-radiation, RFID blocking, and RF shielding fabrics will deliver both performance and practicality. Explore specialized products at Conductive-Fabric.com to find tailored options that balance shielding effectiveness, comfort, and durability.

For samples, technical datasheets, and custom fabric runs, visit Conductive-Fabric.com.

[offgridproducts]

Enhance Your Privacy with a Premium Faraday Pouch

In today’s hyper-connected world, protecting your personal data and electronic devices is more important than ever. Whether you're concerned about digital eavesdropping, identity theft, or simply want to ensure your privacy is intact, a Faraday Pouch is a must-have tool. This essential accessory provides a practical solution to digital security threats by shielding your devices from unwanted signals.

What is a Faraday Pouch?

A Faraday Pouch is a specially designed container that blocks electromagnetic fields. Named after the Faraday cage concept, the pouch prevents signals such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, RFID, and mobile networks from entering or leaving the enclosed device. These pouches are crafted with layers of conductive materials that create a shielded environment, effectively isolating any electronic device placed inside.

Why You Need a Faraday Pouch

Smartphones, key fobs, and credit cards are convenient but also vulnerable to hacking and signal interception. Cybercriminals are increasingly using sophisticated tools to clone keyless car entries, intercept communication, or even track your movements through mobile signals. A Faraday Pouch acts as a shield, safeguarding your data and ensuring complete digital silence.

Key Benefits of a Faraday Pouch

1. Signal Blocking Protection

The primary function of a Faraday Pouch is to block all external signals. When your phone, key fob, or any other small electronic device is placed inside, it is instantly cut off from any external network. This ensures no remote access, tracking, or communication can occur.

2. Identity and Data Theft Prevention

Electronic pickpocketing is a real threat. Criminals can use portable scanners to steal information from your RFID-enabled cards or clone your car’s keyless entry system. A Faraday Pouch creates a barrier, making it impossible for these signals to be intercepted or manipulated.

3. Enhanced Privacy

Whether you're attending a confidential meeting, traveling, or simply wish to disconnect completely, a Faraday Pouch guarantees total privacy. It prevents any incoming or outgoing transmissions, giving you peace of mind in sensitive environments.

4. Compact and Portable

Modern Faraday Pouch designs are sleek, lightweight, and highly portable. They easily fit into bags, glove compartments, or pockets, making them convenient for everyday use. Despite their compact size, they offer maximum protection.

Ideal Uses for a Faraday Pouch

A Faraday Pouch can be used in a wide variety of scenarios:

For Smartphones: Prevent tracking, spying, and location monitoring.

For Car Key Fobs: Stop relay attacks and keyless entry theft.

For Credit and Debit Cards: Shield RFID chips from skimming.

For USB Drives: Secure sensitive data from unauthorized access.

During Travel: Ensure personal data is safe from electronic theft.

Choosing the Right Faraday Pouch

When selecting a Faraday Pouch, quality and reliability are key. Look for pouches made with multi-layered signal-blocking materials, durable construction, and verified test results. Premium brands offer lab-tested solutions that ensure 100% effectiveness in blocking all types of signals.

Everyday Situations Where a Faraday Pouch Makes a Difference

Imagine you're in a meeting and want to prevent any potential data leakage. Placing your smartphone in a Faraday Pouch ensures that it's completely disconnected. Or you’re traveling through busy public spaces, where thieves use scanners to steal card data—your RFID cards remain protected inside the pouch. Even in your daily routine, a Faraday Pouch can serve as a proactive security tool.

Protecting Your Vehicle with a Faraday Pouch

Car theft using relay attacks is on the rise. Thieves amplify the signal from your key fob to unlock and start your car remotely. Keeping your key fob inside a Faraday Pouch when not in use blocks this signal completely, preventing unauthorized access to your vehicle. It’s a simple, effective solution to a sophisticated problem.

Why Professionals Use a Faraday Pouch

Government officials, corporate executives, journalists, and cybersecurity experts frequently rely on a Faraday Pouch to protect sensitive information. These professionals understand the importance of controlling digital access to devices. By isolating electronics from all signals, they minimize the risk of surveillance and data theft.

Durability and Design Matter

A high-quality Faraday Pouch is not just about function—it’s also about form. The best options are made from rugged materials that withstand daily use while maintaining their shielding effectiveness. Some models even feature additional compartments for organizing your items, combining security with convenience.

Real-World Evidence of Effectiveness

Numerous reports and tests have confirmed the efficacy of the Faraday Pouch. Independent labs have validated that devices placed inside are completely shielded from all forms of wireless communication. This makes it a trustworthy choice for individuals serious about security.

The Smart Way to Disconnect

We live in a world where being constantly connected is often seen as necessary. However, there are times when disconnection is not only desired but crucial. A Faraday Pouch offers a reliable, effortless way to cut off all signals without turning off your device or removing the battery. It empowers you with control over your digital environment.

A One-Time Investment for Long-Term Protection

Investing in a Faraday Pouch is a small price to pay for the security it provides. With the increasing threats in the digital world, safeguarding your devices is not a luxury but a necessity. A high-quality pouch lasts for years, offering continuous protection with zero maintenance.

Everyday Convenience and Peace of Mind

You don't need to be a tech expert or security professional to use a Faraday Pouch. Its simplicity and ease of use make it accessible for anyone. Just slip your device inside and enjoy instant protection. Whether you’re at home, at work, or on the move, you can carry peace of mind with you.

Trust Offgrid for Reliable Protection

When choosing a Faraday Pouch, reliability is non-negotiable. Offgrid is a trusted name in the privacy and security space, offering expertly designed pouches that deliver superior performance and long-lasting protection.

Final Thoughts

In a digital age where privacy is constantly under threat, taking proactive steps to secure your personal information is crucial. A Faraday Pouch provides a simple yet powerful way to protect your devices and data. Whether you're guarding against theft, surveillance, or signal interference, this innovative tool is an essential addition to your everyday carry.

Take control of your privacy and invest in a Faraday Pouch today.

[nikshoofurniture]

 Smart Labs: Integrating Technology with Laboratory Furniture

The laboratory of the future is already here — and it’s smart. As scientific research becomes increasingly digitized and automated, traditional lab furniture is evolving into intelligent, tech-integrated systems designed to enhance productivity, safety, and precision.

Today’s “smart labs” are no longer defined just by equipment and instruments, but by how seamlessly their furniture supports and interacts with technology. In this blog, we’ll explore how labs are becoming smarter by embedding tech directly into furniture — and what that means for the future of research environments.

What Is a Smart Lab?

A smart lab integrates digital technologies, automation, IoT (Internet of Things), and data systems into everyday lab operations. These enhancements reduce manual errors, increase throughput, and streamline workflows.

Smart lab furniture supports these goals by:

Enabling connectivity (USB, power, network)

Housing sensors and automation tools

Supporting real-time data tracking

Improving ergonomics and safety through smart systems

It’s a move away from static, inflexible lab layouts to agile, intelligent environments.

Key Features of Smart Laboratory Furniture

Let’s break down the core elements that define modern tech-integrated lab furniture:

1. Built-in Power and Data Ports

Modern lab benches now come with integrated power sockets, USB ports, and data ports to connect instruments directly. This eliminates the clutter of extension cords and supports efficient device deployment.

2. IoT-Enabled Workstations

Lab furniture can now include embedded sensors to monitor:

Air quality or chemical exposure

Humidity and temperature

Usage patterns (e.g., bench time)

This allows lab managers to optimize space usage, monitor environmental compliance, and even predict maintenance needs.

3. Digital Inventory Management

Smart storage cabinets use RFID or barcode tracking to monitor chemical usage and stock levels. Some are even linked to central databases for automatic reordering when supplies run low.

💡 Example: A chemical cabinet alerts you via app when a reagent’s shelf life expires or its quantity drops below threshold.

4. Mobile & Modular Configurations

Furniture with built-in digital screens or plug-and-play ports can be easily moved and reconfigured to suit evolving research needs. Modular stations support collaboration and agile lab setups.

5. Voice & Touch Controls

Some high-end labs are now experimenting with voice-activated utilities or touchscreen panels embedded into benches to control lighting, ventilation, or lab systems.

Benefits of Smart Furniture Integration

Integrating technology into lab furniture delivers a range of advantages:

Improved Efficiency: Researchers spend less time locating supplies or setting up equipment.

Real-Time Monitoring: Constant feedback on environmental conditions and usage.

Reduced Errors: Automated inventory and logging reduces human error.

Enhanced Safety: Smart fume hoods and cabinets can trigger alarms if parameters exceed safe levels.

Data-Driven Decisions: Usage analytics help optimize lab layouts and equipment investments.

Safety Meets Intelligence

Smart furniture can actively enhance lab safety. Here’s how:

Sensor-based emergency alerts for spills or equipment malfunctions

Access control for hazardous chemical cabinets (e.g., keycard or biometric locks)

UV-C disinfection lighting integrated into workstations for pathogen control

With real-time alerts and monitoring, labs become proactive rather than reactive in handling safety concerns.

Sustainability Through Smart Design

Smart lab furniture also plays a role in supporting green lab initiatives:

Energy-efficient systems that shut down when not in use

LED task lighting integrated into benches

Occupancy sensors to reduce HVAC and lighting loads

Waste tracking systems built into disposal stations

These features help institutions meet sustainability benchmarks such as LEED or My Green Lab certification.

The Future of Smart Lab Furniture

Looking ahead, we’re likely to see even more integration between furniture, AI, and remote collaboration platforms.

Future trends may include:

AI-powered lab stations that guide users through complex protocols

Augmented reality (AR) overlays for training and live procedure support

Furniture that adapts in real time to the user’s task, posture, or preferences

Cloud-connected workbenches that sync with LIMS (Laboratory Information Management Systems)

Suggested Image Placement

Image Suggestion: A sleek modern laboratory with a smart bench featuring built-in screens, RFID-enabled drawers, and voice-controlled lighting.

Would you like me to generate or source this image for you?

Conclusion

As laboratories face increasing demands for speed, precision, and compliance, integrating technology into furniture is no longer a luxury — it’s a necessity. Smart lab furniture enhances how science is conducted, making labs safer, cleaner, more connected, and future-proof.

Whether you're building a new lab or upgrading an existing one, investing in smart furniture is a strategic move that will pay dividends in productivity, safety, and innovation.

[thoratketan]

2025 Global Anatomic Pathology Track and Trace Solutions Market: Forecast, Growth Drivers, And Challenges

The global Anatomic Pathology Track and Trace Solutions Market is on a robust growth trajectory, with its value standing at USD 642.97 million in 2022 and projected to reach USD 1,460.53 million by 2030. This marks a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.8% over the forecast period of 2023 to 2030, according to the latest industry analysis.

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Anatomic pathology plays a vital role in disease diagnosis, especially in areas such as oncology, hematology, and infectious diseases. As healthcare systems globally shift toward digital transformation and error-free diagnostics, track and trace solutions in anatomic pathology have emerged as essential tools. These solutions are designed to improve specimen management, reduce labeling errors, enhance laboratory workflow efficiency, and ensure full traceability throughout the pathology process—from sample collection to diagnosis.

A Crucial Tool for Modern Healthcare

The market for track and trace solutions in anatomic pathology is being driven by the growing need for accuracy, accountability, and operational efficiency in pathology labs and healthcare facilities. Errors in specimen labeling, tracking, or handling can have serious consequences, leading to misdiagnosis or treatment delays.

Track and trace solutions, which include barcode systems, RFID technologies, laboratory information systems (LIS), and real-time tracking software, ensure that samples are correctly identified and handled throughout the entire diagnostic cycle. The adoption of such systems has become especially vital in high-volume laboratories where precision and throughput are equally important.

“Accurate pathology is the bedrock of modern medicine. The ability to track every sample from collection to diagnosis not only enhances clinical outcomes but also strengthens patient safety and institutional credibility,” said a senior healthcare analyst at [Insert Research Firm Name].

Market Drivers

Several key factors are fueling the rapid growth of the anatomic pathology track and trace solutions market:

Growing Demand for Error-Free Diagnostics: As healthcare systems strive to improve diagnostic accuracy, the implementation of reliable tracking systems is becoming standard practice in pathology labs worldwide.

Rising Cancer Prevalence: With global cancer cases on the rise, pathology labs are under pressure to deliver timely and precise diagnostic services. Track and trace systems help manage the growing volume of specimens while minimizing the risk of sample mix-ups.

Regulatory Compliance Requirements: Strict regulations governing laboratory practices and patient safety are encouraging healthcare institutions to invest in robust traceability solutions that ensure full audit trails.

Advances in Digital Pathology: As digital pathology gains momentum, integrated track and trace systems are enabling smoother transitions between physical and digital records, supporting better clinical decisions and research initiatives.

KEY MARKET SEGMENTS:

By Product

Software

Hardware

Consumables

By Technology

By Application

By End User

 Competitive Landscape

The anatomic pathology track and trace solutions market is competitive and innovation-driven, with major players focusing on automation, software integration, and AI-powered analytics. Key players in the market include:

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.

Leica Biosystems (Danaher Corporation)

Agilent Technologies, Inc.

Ventana Medical Systems, Inc. (Roche)

Sunquest Information Systems, Inc.

Labcorp

TrakCel

Zebra Technologies Corporation

These companies are actively pursuing strategic collaborations, R&D investments, and product launches to strengthen their global footprint and cater to evolving market demands.

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KEY PLAYERS:

Some of the major key players are Agilent Technologies, Cerebrum Corporation, AP Easy Software Solutions, General Data Healthcare, Leica Biosystems, Primera Technology, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Sunquest Information Systems, Ventana Medical Systems and Zebra Technologies and other players.

 Looking Ahead

As diagnostic medicine continues to evolve, the importance of reliable, transparent, and technology-driven tracking systems in anatomic pathology will only grow. From improving patient safety to enhancing operational efficiency, track and trace solutions are becoming an integral part of the pathology ecosystem.

With market momentum building and innovations accelerating, stakeholders across the healthcare value chain—labs, hospitals, researchers, and technology vendors—are well-positioned to benefit from this high-growth sector.

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[spintly-co]

Access Control Devices Explained: Types, Features, and Benefits

In a world where digital transformation is rapidly reshaping business operations, physical security is evolving too. Gone are the days when traditional lock-and-key systems were sufficient to secure offices, commercial buildings, or sensitive areas. The modern workplace demands smarter, more efficient ways to control who can access specific spaces. That’s where access control devices come into play.

These devices are essential tools that help businesses manage entry, enhance security, and improve convenience for employees, visitors, and facility managers alike. Let’s explore the different types of access control devices available today, their key features, and how they benefit organizations across industries.

What Are Access Control Devices?

Access control devices are hardware components used in a broader access control system to grant or restrict entry to secure areas. These devices verify a user’s identity through credentials like keycards, PIN codes, biometric data, or mobile authentication before allowing access.

Modern access control systems often integrate these devices with cloud-based platforms, enabling remote management, real-time monitoring, and seamless integration with attendance tracking or visitor management solutions.

Types of Access Control Devices

The choice of access control device depends on the level of security required, the number of users, and the type of facility. Here’s a look at the most common types:

1. Keypad-Based Access Devices

These are basic access control devices where users input a numerical PIN code to gain entry. While affordable and easy to install, they may pose security risks if codes are shared or compromised.

2. RFID Card Readers

RFID and smart card readers are widely used in offices and commercial spaces. They require users to carry a card or fob to unlock doors. These systems are convenient but can be vulnerable to loss or duplication if not encrypted properly.

3. Biometric Devices

For higher security needs, biometric access devices offer advanced identity verification through fingerprints, facial recognition, or iris scans. They are accurate and eliminate the need for physical credentials, making them ideal for data centers, labs, and corporate offices.

4. Bluetooth & Mobile Access Devices

As mobile technology advances, smartphones are increasingly used as credentials. Bluetooth-enabled access control devices allow users to unlock doors via mobile apps, offering a contactless, secure, and user-friendly experience — especially valuable in today’s hybrid work environment.

5. Cloud-Connected Controllers

These devices connect to cloud-based platforms that manage access across multiple locations. With centralized control and real-time insights, businesses can monitor activity, update access rights, and view logs remotely.

Key Features of Modern Access Control Devices

Today’s access control devices are more than just door locks. They are part of intelligent ecosystems offering a range of features that enhance functionality and security:

✅ Real-Time Monitoring

Track who accessed what area and when, allowing for quick action in case of suspicious activity.

✅ Mobile Integration

Users can gain access using their smartphones via Bluetooth or QR codes, improving convenience and hygiene in the workplace.

✅ Cloud-Based Management

Manage all devices, users, and locations through a unified, cloud-based dashboard. This makes it easy to scale and manage access remotely.

✅ Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

Combine two or more forms of authentication, like a fingerprint and a mobile credential, for added security.

✅ Integration with Other Systems

Modern devices seamlessly integrate with visitor management, time and attendance systems, and surveillance setups — streamlining overall operations.

Benefits of Using Access Control Devices

Implementing the right access control devices can deliver significant advantages to your organization:

🔐 Enhanced Security

Limit unauthorized access and improve control over sensitive or restricted areas. Whether you manage a co-working space, corporate office, or healthcare facility, having the right devices in place significantly reduces physical security risks.

👨‍💻 Improved Operational Efficiency

Automating entry points reduces reliance on physical keys and manual processes. With cloud-enabled systems, administrators can grant or revoke access in seconds — saving time and reducing errors.

🧾 Audit Trails & Compliance

Access control devices keep detailed logs of all entry events. This is especially important for industries with regulatory requirements, such as healthcare or finance, where compliance and accountability matter.

📱 Contactless Convenience

Bluetooth and mobile-enabled devices allow users to unlock doors without touching shared surfaces — ideal for hygiene-sensitive environments like hospitals or modern office buildings.

🌐 Scalable for Future Growth

Whether you’re adding new doors, onboarding more employees, or expanding into new locations, cloud-integrated devices make scaling easy and cost-effective.

Choosing the Right Access Control Devices for Your Business

Selecting the best access control solution isn’t a one-size-fits-all process. It’s important to assess:

Your organization’s size and structure

The types of users (staff, visitors, contractors)

Required security levels for different zones

Integration with your existing systems

Need for remote access and cloud-based control

Many forward-thinking businesses are moving toward wireless, mobile-first, and biometric access control systems to match their evolving workspace needs. Solutions that combine flexibility, real-time control, and easy scalability offer the best return on investment.

For businesses seeking a smart, seamless approach to physical access management, it helps to explore platforms that offer modern features like smartphone-based credentials, biometric authentication, and cloud-based dashboards. One such solution used by progressive companies is a platform that removes the need for keycards, wiring, and complex installations — leveraging mobile technology to simplify security.

Conclusion

Access control devices have come a long way from basic locks and keypads. Today, they are a cornerstone of intelligent building security — offering real-time control, enhanced convenience, and seamless integration with workplace technologies. As organizations continue to embrace hybrid work models, cloud-based and mobile-enabled solutions are quickly becoming the standard.

Investing in the right access control technology like Spintly not only strengthens security but also improves user experience and operational agility. If your business is ready to upgrade from traditional systems to smarter, more scalable solutions, the time to act is now.

[nursingwriter]

¶ … Healthcare: How Technology Has Changed Medicine OBJECITVE The objective of this work is to examine how technology has effectively changed the practice of medicine. (1) Electronic health record (EHR): Originally, the EHRs were viewed as electronic file cabinets to hold patient data from various sources however, they are now viewed as a part of an automated order-entry and patient-tracking system providing real-time access to patient data, as well as a continuous longitudinal record of their care. (2) Computerized provider order entry (CPOE): CPOE in its basic form is typically a medication ordering and fulfillment system. More advanced CPOE will also include lab orders, radiology studies, procedures, discharges, transfers, and referrals. (3) Clinical decision support system (CDSS): CDSS provides physicians and nurses with real-time diagnostic and treatment recommendations. The term covers a variety of technologies ranging from simple alerts and prescription drug interaction warnings to full clinical pathways and protocols. CDSS may be used as part of CPOE and EHR. (4) Picture archiving and communications system (PACS): This technology captures and integrates diagnostic and radiological images from various devices (e.g., x-ray, MRI, computed tomography scan), stores them, and disseminates them to a medical record, a clinical data repository, or other points of care. (5) Bar coding: Bar coding in a health care environment is similar to bar-code scanning in other environments: An optical scanner is used to electronically capture information encoded on a product. Initially, it will be used for medication (for example, matching drugs to patients by using bar codes on both the medications and patients' arm bracelets), but other applications may be pursued, such as medical devices, lab, and radiology. (6) Radio frequency identification (RFID): This technology tracks patients throughout the hospital, and links lab and medication tracking through a wireless communications system. It is neither mature nor widely available, but may be an alternative to bar coding. (7) Automated dispensing machines (ADMs): This technology distributes medication doses. (8) Electronic materials management (EMM): Health care organizations use EMM to track and manage inventory of medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, and other materials. This technology is similar to enterprise resource planning systems used outside of health care. (9) Interoperability: This concept refers to electronic communication among organizations so that the data in one IT system can be incorporated into another. Discussions of interoperability focus on development of standards for content and messaging, among other areas, and development of adequate security and privacy safeguards. (Report to Congress, June, 2004, p.160) INTRODUCTION The implementation of information technology in the field of health care has not progressed as smoothly and has not been effectively integrated across domains as it was hoped might be the case. There are still technical and practical issues that must be overcome and as well the design and development process of information technology applications must consider key issues that have previously been appointed less important than other issues in design and development of information technology applications. As well, the implementation of information technology has progressed at a much slower rate than was originally expected however, until the issues identified in this report are addressed this will not be possible. This report will conduct a review of the literature that has been published in the past five years in order to determine what issues must be addressed in order to effectuate the implementation of information technology applications across all health care providers locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally in the future. LITERATURE REVIEW Electronic Medical Records The work of Brookstone (2004) entitled: "Electronic Medical Records: Creating the Environment for Change" states that "as physicians become more advanced users of technology, they are exposed to a wider range of tools and technology-based clinical management systems: software and hardware intended to solve problems they face in clinical practice." (Brookstone, 2004) Brookstone states that the level of change "required to implement these solutions is significant and requires a methodological review of work processes before implementation. Even in the most organized practices, it is unlikely that there has been a clear enough documentation of workflow relating to the management of specific clinical data." (Brookstone, 2004) Electronic Medical Record Systems Providers are enabled through electronic medical record (EMR) system which is fully implemented to "easily share patient information, legibly document patient visit, prescribe medication with built-in decision support in terms of drug-drug and drug-disease interaction warnings and create automated patient-recall programs." (Brookstone, 2004) Brookstone states that the ability "to view laboratory results within the EMR system significantly increases the richness of the clinical environment by allowing clinical decision support as part of chronic disease management." (Brookstone, 2004) It requires adequate preparation for physicians to benefit from the electronic medical record system. The electronic medical record systems are being implemented by physicians with "varying degrees of success." As "some systems have been quite successful while other have been complete disasters." (Brookstone, 2004) Barriers to Implementation of EMR Systems Brookstone (2004) identifies specific barriers to electronic medical record implementation systems to include those as follows: (1) Software immaturity. Software development is not advanced enough, despite extensive pre-implementation evaluation. (2) Training issues. Both physicians and staff vary significantly in terms of computer expertise, ranging from novice to advanced users. (3) Privacy concerns. Difficulties arise over who will be entitled to access confidential patient information, and when EMR software architecture does not allow users to easily restrict access to certain providers. (Brookstone, 2004) Barriers to investment of IT include the "…cost and complexity of IT implementation which often necessitates significant work process and cultural changes." (Report to Congress, June, 2004, p.157) Stated as a major barrier to electronic medical records being adopted on a widespread basis is "the limited ability to access health information from external sources." (Brookstone, 2004) Interfaces are described as "pieces of software that allow different systems to communicate with one another and securely transfer information in one or two directions." (Brookstone, 2004) The electronic medical record, when no interface is present "is restricted in its ability to provide a comprehensive view of patient care. Interfaces are complex and costly to develop." (Brookstone, 2004) Brookstone states that there is a need for "a simplified standards-based approach to creating interfaces." Brookstone states that there is currently an existing 'value-gap' "in terms of where physicians are and where they need to be in order to implement an EMR system. The value-gap can be defined as the difference between the efficiencies gained using the current level of technology in a specific medical practice and the total cost of making the jump to the next level of technology. The total cost must be measured in the time, expense, training needs, systems change, loss of productivity, and pain in implementing a new technology." (Brookstone, 2004) Drivers of Investment in IT In a 2004 Report to Congress entitled "New Approaches in Medicare" it is stated that information technology (IT) has the potential to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of health. Diffusion of IT in health care is generally low but surveys indicate that providers plan to increase their investments." (p.1) Drivers of investment in IT are stated to include: (1) the promise of quality; and (2) efficiency gains. (Report to Congress, June, 2004) Barriers to investment of IT include the "…cost and complexity of IT implementation which often necessitates significant work process and cultural changes." (p.157) Characteristics of the Health Care Market The 2004 Report to Congress states that certain characteristics of the health care market -- including payment policies that reward volume rather than quality, and a fragmented delivery system -- can also pose barriers to IT adoption." (p.157) The provision of new methods for providers and their patients to readily access and use health information, information technology (IT) has the potential to improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of health care." (Report to Congress, June, 2004, p.158) Despite this, very few health care providers have adopted IT fully. Low diffusion is stated to be due in part to the "complexity of IT investment, which goes beyond acquiring technology to changing work processes and cultures, and ensuring that physicians, nurses and other staff use it." (Report to Congress, June, 2004, p.158) It is additionally stated that there is a great deal that remains unknown about the "role of IT in the health care setting." (Report to Congress, June, 2004, p.158) The delivery of quality health care makes a requirement of providers and patients in the integration of complex information from many different sources therefore "increasing the ability of physicians, nurses, clinical technicians and others to readily access and use the right information about their patients should improve care." (Report to Congress, June, 2004, p.159) The ability for patients in obtaining information that allows them to manage their condition better and that would improve communication with the health care system could also result in an improvement of the "efficiency and quality of care." (Report to Congress, June, 2004, p.159) The Report to Congress states that both the private and the public health care sectors have "engaged in numerous efforts for promote use of IT within health care institutions and across delivery care settings." (2004, p.159) Activities have included: (1) Development and promotion of industry-wide standards; (2) Funding of research for investigation of the impact of IT on quality; (3) Provision of incentives that provide encouragement of investment in IT; (4) Giving grants to investors in IT; and (5) Development of strategies to improve the flow of information across providers. (Report to Congress, June, 2004, p.159) Stated additionally in the Report to Congress is that there are multiple functions that must be considered when purchase IT and hundreds of applications that various vendors offer. The various IT applications are stated to be within three categories including those of: (1) Administrative and financial systems that facilitate billing, accounting and other administrative tasks; (2) Clinical systems that facilitate or provide input into the care process; and (3) Infrastructure that supports both the administrative and clinical applications. (Report to Congress, June 2004, p.160) The work published by The Royal Society entitled: "Digital Healthcare: The Impact of Information and Communication Technologies on Health and Healthcare" states: "The single most important factor in realizing the potential of healthcare ICTs is the people who use them. The end users of any new technology must be involved at all stages of the design, development and implementation, taking into account how people work together and how patients, carers and healthcare professionals interact." (2006, p.1) It is additionally stated that it should be recognized by all healthcare professionals that ICTs hold great potential value in the health care workplace. It is important that healthcare managers "ensure sufficient time for healthcare professionals to be involved properly in the design, development and implementation of new technologies. This includes local and national health authorities ensuring that funding and time are allocated for initial training and ongoing support when new systems are introduced." (The Royal Society, 2006, p.1) The Royal Society additionally states that higher education institutions and professional bodies "…must ensure that both basic training and continuing professional development include the use and understanding of ICTs as an integral part of healthcare professionals' everyday role." (2006, p.1) The Royal Society states the belief that "Healthcare ICTs will change the roles of patients, carers and healthcare professionals in the delivery of healthcare. For example, more healthcare-related material is available now for patients via the worldwide web, leading to a new role for healthcare professionals in guiding patients through the various information sources. Continued research into the socio-cultural impact of healthcare ICTs is required." (2006, p.1) The Royal Society states that data access is both a complex as well as a controversial issue since it is "…technically possible to establish systems that allow different levels of access to an individual's electronic health records. However, it is not clear what a sensible access policy would be because there is an unresolved conflict between privacy and sharing healthcare data for both individual and public benefit." (2006, p.2) In order that a resolution be found to this conflict "…there needs to be further engagement with patients, carers and the wider public to determine where a workable balance lies between privacy issues and data sharing." (The Royal Society, 2006, p.2) The health policy of future government is stated to be presented with a need to "…be informed by the findings of this engagement." (The Royal Society, 2006, p.2) The Royal Society states that it advocates strongly for "an incremental and iterative approach to the design, implementation and evaluation of healthcare ICTs. This involves engaging the end users at all appropriate stages from determining the specifications through to training and ongoing support once the system is introduced." (2006, p.2) Stated to be a major part of this approach is the design and development since this includes good or bad elements of systems. Particular attention should be paid to the "impact of the speed and scale of the different programs and the varying levels of user-engagement." (The Royal Society, 2006, p.3) The criteria for evaluating the technical and financial performance should be establishing in the beginning of the development process as should user satisfaction. There is a requirement that "…local, regional, national and international systems must be able to operate together and share information, which requires national and international standards. We encourage the Government to build on its ongoing work to achieve connectivity as quickly as possible between the different national and international standards being developed. It will not be possible to establish fully interoperable systems until these standards are agreed." (The Royal Society, 2006, p.3) The following figure lists examples of health information technology for hospitals and physicians. Figure 1 Examples of Health Information and Technology for Hospitals and Physicians Source: Report to Congress (June, 2004) SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION This work has identified the primary barriers and drivers of information technology in the health care environment and as well has noted the various challenges that are presented in implementation of electronic medical record systems and other information technology applications in the health care workplace. Barriers have been noted to include the immaturity of software and training issues accompanied by concerns over privacy. Cost and complexity have also been noted in this study to present specific challenges to implementation of IT. Interfaces are noted in this study as a particular problem in electronic medical record system implementation. That which serves to drive information technology investment are two factors: (1) the promise of quality and (2) gains in efficiency. The effort should be specifically driven by management in the health care sector and by higher educational institutions and professional bodies through making sure that basic training as well as ongoing professional development are inclusive of the understanding of the use of the information technology as being integral in the role of the healthcare professional daily. Concerns of patients over privacy will have to be effectively addressed as well as issues relating to integration of systems on local, regional, national and international levels. While information technology implementation in health care has not progressed at the expected rate, it is likely that as health care professionals become more attuned to and informed of the capacity and potential of information technology applications in the health care workplace that information technology will be implemented widely across the health care sector. BIBLIOGRAPHY BC Medical Association. Getting IT Right: Patient Centered Information Technology . Vancouver: BCMA. 2004:39-40. Blum E. Paperless medical record not all it's cracked up to be AMNews; 17 February 2003. Online available Brookstone A, Braziller C. Engaging physicians in the use of electronic medical records. Electronic Healthcare 2003;2:23-27. Brookstone, Alan. 2004. Electronic Medical Records: Creating the Environment for Change. BCMJ, Vol. 46, No. 5 June 2004. Online available at: http://www.bcmj.org/electronic-medical-records-creating-environment-change Center for Information Technology Leadership. 2003. The value of computerized provider order entry in ambulatory settings. Boston, MA: CITL. Chin, T. 2004. Financing high-tech: You can afford it after all. American Medical News (March 8). http://www.amaassn.org/amednews. Darves, B. 2004. CPOE: The promise and the pitfalls. HealthLeaders (February 5). http://www.healthleaders.com. De La Garza, P. 2004. VA vows to retrain Bay Pines staffers. St. Petersburg Times. March 23. Devers, K.J., and G. Liu. 2004. Leapfrog patient-safety standards are a stretch for most hospitals. Issue brief no. 77. Washington, DC: Center for Studying Health System Change. Digital Healthcare: The Impact of Information and Communication Technologies on Health and Healthcare. (2006) The Royal Society. The Clyvedon Press Ltd., Cardiff CF15 9QR, UK. Dodge, J. 2004. Exclusive: A conversation at HIMSS with Richard Granger. Health-IT World (March 29). http://www.bioitworld.com/archive/retort/.February. First Consulting Group. 2003. Computerized physician order entry: Costs, benefits and challenges, a case study approach. Prepared for American Hospital Association and Federation of American Hospitals. January. Food and Drug Administration. 2004. Bar code label requirements for human drug products and biological products. Final rule. Federal Register 69, no. 38 (February 26): 9119 -- 9171. iHealthBeat. 2003. Report: Health care IT spending growth continues. iHealthBeat. November 20. http://www.ihealthbeat.org. Information Technology in Health Care (2004) Report to Congress: New Approaches in Medicare. June 2004. MEDPAC. Institute of Medicine. 2000. To err is human: Building a safer health system. ed. L. Kohn, J. Corrigan, and M. Donaldson. Washington, DC: National Academy Press Institute of Medicine. 2001. Crossing the quality chasm: A new health system for the 21st century. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Institute of Medicine. 2002. Leadership by example: Coordinating government roles in improving health care quality, ed. J. Corrigan, J. Eden, and B. Smith. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Institute of Medicine. 2003. Read the full article