The Need for Visitor Management

Visitor management needs to consist of more than just colored badges and paper sign-in sheets. The Connecticut Children’s Medical Center understood that when it began the search to improve upon that type of visitor management “system.”

The medical center’s search for a better solution was accelerated by a security incident in early 2005, after which the state asked the hospital to enhance the way they processed and tracked visitors.

Getting the right pass for the right person was an “extremely cumbersome” process, according to Phillip LeClair, CHPA, security manager at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center.

The medical center initially became interested in a feature set that closely aligned with their organizational goals: To manage visitors securely, flexibly and simply. Of particular interest was the ability to configure the solution with all of the peripherals the medical center wanted, including business cards, drivers’ licenses and barcode scanners as well as digital cameras.

Visitor Management Solutions

Today, a visitor management solution is “used to the fullest” at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, according to LeClair. “We use it to check in every visitor who enters our facility, at every entrance. All locations in the hospital are listed by category and the inpatient being visited is prominently displayed. Visitor passes are printed with a barcode for check-out. Even employees who have lost or forgotten their IDs are processed via the EasyLobby visitor management system.”

Connecticut Children’s Medical Center also uses the solution to produce multi-day visitor passes, allowing them to be checked-in and out with a quick and easy barcode scan, either at a badging station or with mobile scanners. A self-check-in kiosk enhances service levels, which provides a touch screen and driver’s license scanner for visitors. The Web-based system allows employees to pre-register visitors through the hospital intranet.

Other features used by Connecticut Children’s Medical Center include the Watch List to flag unwanted visitors, a panic button, e-mail alerts and both custom and required fields. In addition, the medical center recently added networked Dymo label printers on its inpatient unit floors, allowing corrected or updated passes to be printed from the lobby stations and delivered to visitors already at the inpatient unit.

Successful Results

Connecticut Children’s Medical Center uses the percentage of visitors checked out as an ROI indicator and has achieved a 90 percent check-out rate thus far. The medical center has also benefitted from being able to use database records for internal investigations, to assist law enforcement and prevent incidents.

“What we particularly like about the solution is its flexibility and expandability,” said LeClair. “We started with one workstation and quickly expanded to eight workstations to encompass the entire facility.”

LeClair also mentioned that Connecticut Children’s Medical Center recently received a security audit from a leading security consultant who not only gave the facility a top review, but also suggested that Connecticut Children’s Medical Center be among the most secure Children’s Hospitals in the U.S.

How’s that for proving ROI?

Connecticut Children’s Medical Center by the Numbers:

Facility: One primary facility with 375,000 sq. ft.
Number of patient beds: 135
Number of visitors processed: 2,200 per day
Number of vendors processed: 50-100 per day
Number of visitor management stations in use: 8