For many of the country’s growing regional healthcare systems, making investments to ensure the security and safety of staff, patients and visitors is integral element of healthy growth.
Nowhere is this more paramount than within St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa, Fla., a multi-hospital organization embarking on an ambitious five-year security improvement plan to upgrade its security systems and procedures. The plan will help the state’s fifth-largest healthcare system meet the ever changing security challenges with a system that leverages the hospital’s existing infrastructure to work with new investments in scalable, state-of-the-art video surveillance and access control technology.
Part of the BayCare Health System, St. Joseph’s Hospital is home to three separate facilities on its 38-acre campus – St. Joseph’s Hospital, St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital and St. Joseph’s Women’s Hospital. With ongoing renovations to all three hospital buildings, as well as the design and construction of St. Joseph’s North, a new hospital opening in 2009, it was necessary to identify and address current security concerns of the existing campus but also incorporate new construction as part of the five-year plan.
Hospital security staff and executive management worked with Securitas Systems USA to design the system. “We knew we needed technical advice on how to leverage a security system upgrade into the best investment for the future,” said Dodd Day, manager, safety, security and emergency preparedness for St. Joseph’s Hospital. “The company did an excellent job of developing solutions for the hospital’s security and safety needs that will make the most of our existing equipment while keeping us current with new technology.”