50,000 dutch nurses use NFC phones daily

http://movesonrails.com/journal/2011/8/30/50000-dutch-nurses-use-nfc-phones-daily.html

by barttenbrinke • 15 years ago

51 19 15 years ago

rickmb2• 15 years ago

It's kind of frightening to think of Nedap operating in the healthcare industry. This is the same company responsible for the insecure and unverifiable voting machines that were eventually banned in at least the Netherlands, Ireland and Germany. I really hope they're not processing any privacy sensitive information.

barttenbrinke4• 15 years ago

Hi Rick, maybe you should come and visit Nedap. I would really like to show you how we do business here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUQ5Aac96aM Kind regards, Bart

joelhaasnoot2• 15 years ago

Election systems is just one of their business units though: http://www.nedap.com/index.php?cat_id=31

While it's the same company isn't it a bit of a stretch? It's like saying Microsoft is awful because they make an awful search engine Bing.

micheljansen3• 15 years ago

Indeed, it's a weird way to pose this. As I recall, it was never the company or their specific voting machines that was the subject of discussion, but rather the idea of using closed (and thus unverifiable) voting machines produced by a commercial company for general elections. Stating that this makes the company evil or unreliable seems a bit dishonest to me.

Full disclosure: I am a former employee (I worked on the product mentioned in this article), but I joined the company much after the voting machines were in the news, so what I know is pretty much what was in the media at the time.

hammock• 15 years ago

Then you may be surprised to learn that Diebold who makes US voting machines also makes most of the ATM machines.

danudey• 15 years ago

Diebold, the company famous for making horrendously engineered voting machines, also makes all of the (completely awesome) ATMs for the bank I use. It was a little unnerving at first, but I came to the conclusion that it's not that bad.

The big reason: regulation. The banking industry, as with the health care industry, is highly regulated. The election industry is not, because no one's really been making them until recently.

chrisbennet• 15 years ago

OK, I'll ask; What does "NFC" stand for?

dminor• 15 years ago

Near Field Communications - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_field_communication

blahedo• 15 years ago

Part of me wants to snark back at you (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=NFC), but I had to look it up too, and the larger issue is: this page really should have told us. I'm familiar with the general concept, but the acronym is not yet in mainstream use!

barttenbrinke4• 15 years ago

Simple explanation: RFID => reading a chip, NFC => communicating with a chip.

gregory803• 15 years ago

So it's a digital timecard system where the patient is required to keep a special ID?

Certainly sees neat, but why not just base the whole app off GPS data and skip the cards for 'billing' completely?

barttenbrinke4• 15 years ago

Primarily because tracking people 24/7 through GPS in their phone is a privacy no-no. Next tot that: GPS is really unreliable in buildings and oldfolks tend to live in appartment blocks. Also hight (floor) is an issue as well as battery life.

gregory803• 15 years ago

Why would nurses, who have been given the phones in the first place (and do the billing) not be able to run 24/7 GPS on their own phones? Also, it wouldn't even have to be 24/7, if they work from 9-5 then its only during those hours.

Also, why would this be a no-no? How do you think map applications work? And 'local recommendations' apps?

EDIT: Add link to Apple / Google tracking GPS on phones http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/google-apple-track-users-lo...

50,000 dutch nurses use NFC phones daily

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